Knut Wicksell is arguably the greatest Swedish social scientist of all time, and poverty was a theme that occupied him all his life. Indeed, it was probably Wicksell's interest in poverty that was the critical factor in drawing him away from his purely mathematical background towards a greater understanding of the social sciences as a whole.

In this outstanding volume, Mats Lundahl, one of the world's leading development economists, examines Wicksell's thinking in the area of poverty, and shows the importance of his contributions to this field.