Why the Poor Remain Poor: The Experience of Bogotá Market Traders in the 1970s

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Abstract
The persistence of long-term poverty among sectors of the urban and rural population in less-developed countries (LDCs), as well as in the so-called developed world, has resulted in the formulation of a diversity of interpretations by theoreticians and policy-makers seeking to comprehend the life of the poor, and for political, economic, and moral reasons to develop solutions to alleviate poverty. Recognition of the failure of the Accelerated Growth Model to produce adequate redistribution of resources and income throughout society through the “filter down” effect has led to changes in emphasis in poverty-related research during the past two decades. There has been a shift in focus away from measurements of absolute poverty, the insufficiency of basic needs to ensure survival, toward the clarification of the determinants of relative poverty, the social inequality experienced by those in the bottom segment of the income distribution within a given society.