The Economics Book

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Society and the economy

KEY THINKERS

John Stuart Mill (1806–73)

Amartya Sen (1933–)

BEFORE

1879 US economist Henry George publishes Progress and Poverty, a huge bestseller that called for a land tax to alleviate poverty.

1890s Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree conduct poverty surveys in the UK.

AFTER

1958 US economist John Kenneth Galbraith draws attention to poverty in his book The Affluent Society.

1973 Indian economist Amartya Sen proposes a new poverty index.

2012 The World Bank defines extreme poverty as an income of less than $1 a day.

In high-income countries governments often account for 30–50 percent of spending in the economy. About ...