The issues surrounding poverty and inequality continue to be of central concern to academics, politicians and policy makers but the way in which we seek to study and understand them continues to change over time. This accessible new book seeks to provide a guide to some of the new approaches that have been developed in the light of international initiatives to reduce poverty and the notable increases in income inequality and poverty that have occurred across many western countries in recent years. These new approaches have to some degree been facilitated by the emergence of new techniques and a growing availability of data that enables cross national comparisons not only of income variables but also of measures of welfare such as education achievement, nutritional status in developing countries and wealth and deprivation indicators in the developed world. Including specially commissioned research from a distinguished list of international authors, this volume makes a real contribution to the public debate surrounding inequality and poverty as well as providing new empirical information about them from around the world.