This report raises a number of fundamental questions about the multidimensional and interrelated nature of social exclusion and moves beyond the traditional emphasis on outcomes and groups to view exclusion as a process that results from societal traits that limit the functionings of the excluded. Using the tools of experimental economics, the report shows the enormous economic and welfare costs of exclusion, suggesting that inclusion policies should be viewed as an investment rather than as a supposedly generous handout to the worst off in society. Inclusion policies thus are more than new programs or new institutions to redress past injustices through income transfers, and imply fundamental changes in the way decisions are made, resources are allocated, and policies are implemented in democratic societies.
