The Trappings of Poverty:The Role of Assets and Liabilities in Socio-economic Mobility in Rural Bangladesh

This paper examines the role of assets and liabilities in socio-economic mobility patterns using findings from 293 life-history interviews, conducted by the author and a small team of researchers in rural Bangladesh in 2007. The analysis shows that individuals on trajectories of long-term improvement in wellbeing are more likely to have had access to, or to have invested in, a range of productive, investment, or protective assets. Tangible assets such as shops, land, livestock, vehicles and agricultural machinery had direct effects on poverty status and on improvements in life trajectories over the long term; less-tangible assets such as investments made in education, networks of relationships, or social status, were less easily assessed but also had positive effects. [Working Paper No. 195] URL: [http://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/WP195%20Davis.pdf]