The Economics of Poverty in Poor Countries

This paper examines the links that have recently been studied between poverty, high fertility and undernourishment, on the one hand, and degradation of the local environmental‐resource base and civic disconnection, on the other, in poor countries. An account is offered of a number of pathways involving positive feedbacks that create poverty traps, in which certain identifiable groups of people in an economy can get caught even when the economy in the aggregate experiences economic growth. The relevant policy implications are noted.