A General View of Poverty in Turkey as an Issue for Social Work in the Light of Behavioral Finance and Game Theory

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors define poverty in general terms before including statistics for a detailed, Turkey-specific discussion. Once the authors elaborate on the causes of poverty, they introduce behavioural economics and game theory, the fundamental aim of the chapter being to examine how these two theories affect perceptions of poverty and the struggle against poverty. Another issue that enters into the scope of this chapter is to what extent the poor themselves are responsible for their own poverty. On this question, game theory and behavioural economics can potentially be marshalled against the poor. However, we also argue that, by using a different approach, both theories can be interpreted in the poor's favour. We examine the double-sided nature of these two theories in detail and stress how important it is in the study of poverty to consider the disadvantageous position in which the poor find themselves.