Why Are Some People Poor?

This article reviews the debate on the changing ‘geography’ or location of global poverty. Specifically, that most global poverty is concentrated in a set of populous countries that have transitioned from low income countries to middle income countries. The article argues that the shift in global poverty implies a questioning of the dominant theory of absolute poverty in all but the world’s very poorest countries: that is, that poverty in developing countries is explicable at societal level by insufficient public and private resources to address absolute poverty. Instead, it is argued that a structural theory – meaning here a theory that takes account of questions of distribution – is increasingly relevant to most (but not all) of global poverty.