Comparative Perspectives on the Relationship of Public Finance and Poverty (Report‪)‬

1. INTRODUCTION Why is studying poverty important and why is the persistence of poverty in some nations and geographic areas of concern? For nations, having significant numbers of persons living in poverty represents a loss of human potential and economic productivity. For individuals and households, living in poverty means being cut off from the larger society and economic opportunity. To be poor in the global economy today, even more than in the past, is to be an economic outcast.