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This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the nature and causality of poverty, in order to facilitate sustained growth and poverty reduction among the poor. This paper examines two key aspects of the nature of poverty: how human well-being evolves over time, and the multi-scalar nature of poverty. Through the author's examinations of these facets of poverty, they conclude that poverty recurs in patterns, leading to the geometrically derived name "fractal poverty traps."

The authors’ model for fractal poverty traps that highlights the cyclical nature of poverty. The fractal poverty trap model leads the authors to five primary policy suggestions for poverty reduction:

• short-term transfers to individuals, households, communities, and nations caught in low-level poverty equilibria may help them to approach and cross crucial poverty thresholds, which may lead to sustainable poverty reduction
• governments and donors need to work for the creation and extension of transition strategies that are accessible to the chronically poor and that can lead to accumulation that will carry them past thresholds and into other strategies with better equilibria
• public agencies must work to eliminate prohibitive poverty thresholds, and facilitate individuals moving themselves out of poverty
• there is a critical need for effective safety nets set just above critical thresholds so as to prevent people from falling unexpectedly into chronic poverty
• governments need to devolve authority over resources and issue areas to the lowest possible effective scale.

[adapted from author]

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