The Bottom of the Pyramid Strategy for Reducing Poverty: A Failed Promise

Aneel Karnani

Working Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs

Abstract: The movement emphasizing free markets to reduce poverty has found strong expression in the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ approach in recent years. It views the poor as “resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers”. This romanticized view of the poor harms the poor in two ways. First, it results in too little emphasis on legal, regulatory and social mechanisms to protect the poor who are vulnerable consumers. Second, it overemphasizes microcredit and underemphasizes fostering modern enterprises that would provide employment opportunities for the poor. More importantly, it grossly underemphasizes the critical role and responsibility of the state in poverty reduction.

Keywords: Poverty reduction; bottom of pyramid; consumption choices; micro-entrepreneurs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I30 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2009/wp80_2009.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:une:wpaper:80

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Aimee Gao ().