The overarching aim of this book is to assess the dynamics of poverty in rural Bangladesh. This work re fl ects poverty dynamics between different social groups such non-poor, ascending poor, descending non-poor, and chronically poor households between 2004 and 2009 and highlights differences and similarities in the poverty situations between and among these groups over a 5-year time horizon. Poverty researchers are now well aware that static poverty analysis has only limited explanatory power and may hide the processes that are important for understanding poverty dynamics. The conventional approach to poverty analysis shows how poverty varies across social sub-groups, but it does not show any changes in poverty among the same households over a period of time. The state of poverty is not static; it is dynamic, as multiple interacting forces are involved. Very few empirical studies on poverty dynamics have been done in Bangladesh. However, the study of poverty dynamics is important for framing effective poverty alleviation policies because the changes in consumption poverty are also accompanied by substantial changes in other socioeconomic factors such as literacy, gender parity in schools, health-care services, infant and child mortality, and asset holdings, among others. In order to examine poverty dynamics, information on a total of 1,212 households was collected twice, fi rst in December 2004 and then in December 2009. This involved conducting both quantitative and qualitative surveys with the same households at two points in time. The panel data permit us to understand the ways in which individuals/households explain the changes that occurred with them between 2004 and 2009.