Journal of Economic Literature
Book Reviews
2026-08-28
Jennifer Hochschild of Harvard University reviews “Poverty and Inequality” by David B. Grusky, Ravi Kanbur,. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Seven papers develop a comprehensive framework for measuring poverty and inequality and explore the conceptual challenges that must be met in devising new approaches to understanding and measuring poverty and inequality. Papers discuss the conceptual foundations of poverty and inequality measurement (David B. Grusky and Ravi Kanbur); conceptualizing and measuring poverty (Amartya Sen); poverty and human functioning--capabilities as fundamental entitlements (Martha C. Nussbaum); the difficult task of expanding the income poverty paradigm (Francois Bourguignon); social theory and the concept “underclass” (William Julius Wilson); social policy in the twenty-first century (Douglas S. Massey); and dependency and social debt (Martha Albertson Fineman). Grusky is Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. Kanbur is T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs at Cornell University. Index.”