Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Approaching New Ideas in Poverty Research
Vilhelm K. Bohutskyy

ABSTRACT. The article dealt with the issues related to the debate about the new approaches to poverty research. It was shown that due to the new developments in the economies caused by globalisation, a new research agenda was set forth before social scientists and economists.

Globalisation radically changed the nature of poverty and its causes, therefore, the old approaches to poverty research are under crisis. It was suggested that it is no longer possible to understand poverty without understanding the processes in the global economy and their interplay with the specific features of the institutional structures of national economies.

Without denying the crucial importance of the political and purely economic factors in stimulating development, it is shown that building domestic institutions can allow poor countries to make the most of markets and globalisation.

It is concluded that the successful development of institutions depends, to a considerable extent, on the capability of a nation to reach into its own spiritual, cultural and societal resources in order to be able to build its own internal consensus for reform and change. The case study of the Ukraine serves as an alarming example of how poverty and economic decline may reinforce each other in the vicious circle of socio-economic stagnation.

KEYWORDS: poverty, globalisation, multidisciplinarity, economic development, the Ukraine.