First published in 1999, Worlds Apart examined the nature of poverty through the stories of real people in three remote rural areas of the United States: New England, Appalachia, and the Mississippi Delta. In this new edition, Duncan returns to her original research, interviewing some of the same people as well as some new key informants. Duncan provides powerful new insights into the dynamics of poverty, politics, and community change. "Duncan, through in-depth investigation and interviews, concludes that only a strong civic culture, a sense among citizens of community and the need to serve that community, can truly address poverty. . . . Moving and troubling. Duncan has created a remarkable study of the persistent patterns of poverty and power."—Kirkus Reviews "The descriptions of rural poverty in Worlds Apart are interesting and read almost like a novel."—Choice

Why Poverty Persists significantly advances our understanding of the temporal dimensions of poverty. Its judicious mix of new evidence and improved methods offers new insights into why some people remain mired in poverty and the forces that keep them there. All those interested in combating poverty - academics, donors and those working in the non-governmental organizations - will learn from the carefully constructed African and Asian case studies presented. John Hoddinott, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, US Ten years ago Bob Baulch and John Hoddinott drew our attention to the phenomenon of poverty dynamics" - an insight into the unpredictability of poor peoples livelihoods that had profound implications for poverty thinking and policy, forcing a rethink of static conceptualisations and measurement and raising challenges for targeting anti-poverty programmes. In this new volume, Baulch and colleagues enrich this understanding with rigorous analysis of panel datasets from six countries in Africa and Asia. Most impressively, this illuminating collection by technical microeconometricians is equally accessible to non-technical readers, which effectively communicates its important messages to development policy-makers and practitioners. Stephen Devereux, University of Sussex, UK This volume on poverty dynamics in developing countries, whose authors include the leaders in this field, is a must for analysts and research students. It advances the literature by addressing three important issues - measurement error, attrition, and tracking. For each of these questions, the volume leads by example, showing how they can be handled in specific cases. The results show that escape from poverty is a diverse phenomenon, and establish the importance of country and context specificity. The volume provide an analytical platform for careful policy assessment of policy alternatives. Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University, US At the beginning of the 2000-2010 decade, Bob Baulch (with John Hoddinott) was setting the micro-econometric agenda on poverty dynamics and chronic poverty and producing work that "non-economists" had to read if they wanted to conduct serious research on these issues. In this volume - though his analytical excellence, the pursuit and methodological rigour, extraordinary energy, and his ability to lead such a distinguished network of colleagues - Bob Baulch has set the research agenda on poverty dynamics and chronic poverty for the next ten years. - From the foreword by David Hulme, University of Manchester,UK

Over five years, sociologist Cynthia Duncan visited remote rural areas across the U.S. and conducted 350 in-depth interviews with the residents to unravel the ways in which poverty is perpetuated--and what can be done to alleviate the problem. Illustrations.

The authors examine how the links between the various sectors of the economy impinge on the development process. They argue that moving labour from agriculture into industry is a key element in improving the well-being of the poor but qualify this by showing that industrial progress by itself cannot benefit the poor, in the absence of progress in the agricultural sector.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.