This volume, which is a part of the Asian Development Bank’s policy brief series explores the connection between trade and poverty. International trade and its liberalization can expand the range of goods and services available to the poor and reduce prices of those goods and services, increasing real income and reducing poverty. In practice, trade expansion creates both winners and losers. In the process, trade can reduce relative poverty, absolute poverty, both or neither, but is usually found to benefit the poor. However, the effects of trade openness on the poor, beyond the effect on overall growth, are not systematic and there is considerable variation across countries and time periods. The policy brief examines the benefits that trade has on the poor, it outlines both the domestic context as well as the international trading environment and it looks at policy implications.