The BASIS Research Program on Poverty, Inequality and Development is dedicated to understanding the poverty and income distribution dynamics of rural economies and to crafting creative policies and programs that broaden the base of economic growth and offer sustainable pathways from rural poverty. BASIS research has developed an asset-based approach to understanding poverty traps and poverty dynamics, derived its implications for poverty measurement, and developed its implications for social protection policy.

Building on the long tradition of economic development research at the University of Wisconsin, BASIS emerged from the Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) of the same name that was generously funded by USAID over the period 1995-2006. Key pieces of analysis from the BASIS CRSP include the monograph Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa (Routledge, 2007) and a series of contributions on innovations to reshape rural financial markets by crowding in both demand and supply of credit and other services.

Today, BASIS hosts the Assets and Market Access Collaborative Research Support Program, funded by USAID with secondary support from the Millennium Challenge Corporation. In addition, the BASIS work on poverty traps enjoys support from the Chronic Poverty Research Centre at the University of Manchester and the World Bank.