1 GLOBAL POVERTY AND THE ‘NEW BOTTOM BILLION’ REVISITED: WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE POOR? Andy Sumner, King’s College, London 18 February 2016 Abstract: This paper revisits the debate on the changing ‘geography’ or location of global poverty. Specifically, most global poverty is concentrated in a set of populous countries that have transitioned from low income to middle income countries. The paper revisits the debate and argues that the shift in global poverty implies a questioning of the dominant theory of absolute poverty in all but the world’s very poorest countries: that is that poverty in developing countries is explicable at societal level by insufficient public and private resources to address absolute poverty. Instead, a structural theory it is argued - meaning here theory that takes account of questions of distribution - is increasingly relevant to most, but not all, of global poverty. To this end an indicative empirical example of resources nationally available to end extreme poverty is explored in the form of the reallocation of public spending from regressive fossil fuel subsidies to poverty transfers.