Marginal Revolution: The Persistence of Poverty – “If pains and troubles are high enough, extra pain and trouble just isn’t so bad. You hardly notice it. But that overturns standard economic assumptions of diminishing marginal utility…”Getting tough” with the poor through policy is more likely to backfire than succeed, as it just encourages more mean-reducing, risk-taking behavior…It can make more sense to give money to people on the verge of leaving poverty, rather than people deeply mired in poverty. The former transfer will get people onto “normal” marginal utility curves, but the deeply poor will just squander their new wealth, as it doesn’t much alleviate their unhappiness.”