Contents: Preface. 1. Economists on poverty: an introduction/Daniel Rauhut, Neelambar Hatti and Carl-Axel Olsson. 2. Adam Smith - a champion for the poor!/Daniel Rauhut. 3. Malthus and the poor!/Martin Dribe. 4. Saving the poor: J.S. Mill on poverty/Daniel Rauhut. 5. Marx on poverty: a theoretical exposition/Daniel Ankarloo. 6. Alfred Marshall, poverty and economic theory: a historical perspective/Carl-Axel Olsson. 7. Knut Wicksell and the causes of poverty: population growth and diminishing returns/Mats Lundahl. 8. Heckscher on poverty: causes and cures/Benny Carlson. 9. Hayek, poverty and the poor/Ingemar Bengtsson. 10. Institutional economics and poverty: a focus on perspectives from Douglass C. North/Peter L. Daniels. 11. Amartya Sen, capability deprivation and poverty/Daniel Rauhut and Neelambar Hatti. 12. Poverty and new welfare economics/Andreas Bergh. Index.

"Throughout history the poor have been considered to be some sort of groups on the fringes of the society and for which the society has had to care for. Poverty, and the poor, has been often explained by individual factors, and sometimes by structural factors. Regardless of whether one relates poverty to individual or structural factors, it remains related to the fundamental problems of allocation and distribution that economic theory deals with.

Many path-breaking works by economists since Adam Smith have dealt with and attempted to analyse different aspects related to poverty. The present volume describes and critically examines how selected economists, representing different strands of economic theory, explain the causes of and the cures for poverty." (jacket)