Identifying the Urban Poor: Characteristics of Poverty Households in Bogotá, Medellín, and Lima

Abstract

During the last few years, interest in overall economic growth as the best measure and object of development has increasingly given way to a preoccupation with the distribution of income and thus with how the benefits of economic growth are shared. Within this general concern is a specific preoccupation with the poorest families in less-developed countries, who may remain in dire poverty despite significant increases in income per head or other measures of development.