The concept of ‘Vicious Circle of Poverty’ is related to :

The correct answer is B) Nurkse. Ragnar Nurkse popularised the idea of the vicious circle of poverty in Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries (1953). His chain runs: low income leads to low savings, which leads to low investment and capital formation, which keeps productivity low and income low again. He framed it on both the supply side (low capital) and the demand side (small market, weak incentive to invest).

Why the others are wrong:

• Karl Marx wrote about class struggle, surplus value and capitalist crises. He did not build a poverty-trap model of underdeveloped economies.
• Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations (1776) on division of labour, the invisible hand and the growth of wealth. Poverty traps were not his argument.
• D is wrong because B is correct.

Core concept: capital formation as the binding constraint on development. This links directly to Mains GS-3 on savings, investment and the Indian growth model, and to the big push and balanced growth debates that followed Nurkse.

Trap: Students often pick Marx because poverty and exploitation sound like his themes. Keep Nurkse (1953) and Myrdal's circular cumulative causation separate in your notes.