Challenging the conventional approach most "poverty" books take-a focus on how government attempts to assist the poor with welfare programs-D. Eric Schansberg instead presents in this volume a dynamic and timely alternative to the idea. Using public choice economics, he illustrates how special interest groups advocate policies that benefit themselv

D. Eric Schansberg is assistant professor of economics at Indiana University-Southeast.

Preface -- An Introduction to Poverty and Redistribution -- Measuring Poverty: Who's Poor? -- Government as Robin Hood: Taxing the Rich and Redistributing to the Poor -- Discriminatio: A Primary or Secondary Cause of Poverty? -- How the Government Hurts the Poor -- Reversing Robin Hood: How to Transfer Income to the Non-Poor -- Redistributing Income Through Product Markets: Increasing Prices for the Poor -- The Minimum Wage: Locking Unskilled Workers Out of the Labor Market -- Other Labor Market Interventions: Locking Out Relatively Unskilled Workers -- Other Types of Redistribution to the Non-Poor: Let Me Count the Ways . . . -- Mandating a Pathetic Level of Education: A Way to Ensure Lifetime Poverty -- Prohibition II: The Sequel -- Where They Live and Breathe: Government Policy in the Markets for Housing and Health -- How Government Tries to Help the Poor -- The Historical Role of Ideology in Efforts to Fight Poverty -- Equity Versus Efficiency: The Costs of Pursuing Income Equality -- Still Losing Ground -- Local and Voluntary Versus Federal and Bureaucratic -- Religion and Poverty -- Fixing Welfare: Take It Behind the Barn ... -- Myths and Causes of Poverty Around the World -- The Cause and Effect of Population, Resources, and Food -- Foreign Aid: Stepping Stone or Stumbling Block? -- The Road to Recovery: Get Government (Mostly) Out of the Way -- Conclusion