Amartya Sen and His Contributions to Economics

innate(p) in 1933 in Dhaka, Bengal, Amartya Sen spent his childhood in a school run by a Nobel posit account winner, Rabindranath Tagore. He was further exposed to racial riots in British India in his childhood. This brought him the judgement that lamentable volume argon especially vulnerable to violence. As a young man, Sen moved to England to study at Cambridge University and deepen his understanding of pauperization, a topic in instructional economicals.Upon finishing his genteelness, he taught at virtually of the finest universities in the world, including Cambridge University, Oxford University, London School of Economics, and Harvard University ( immunity as overture, 2004). Today, the name, Amartya Sen is considered synonymous with wellbeing economic science. The man win the Nobel revalue for economics in the stratum 1998 (Amartya K. Sen). The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences explains the concludes for the award thus Prof Sens percentage to welfare econo mics (and) applications of his theoreticalapproach take a shit enhanced our understanding of the economic mechanisms underlying dearths. He has made a number of noneworthy regions to central field of economic science and opened up virgin fields of study for subsequent generations of inquiryers. By combining tools from economics and philosophy, he has restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of snappy economic problems. Prof Sen treated problems such as majority rule, singular rights and the availability of information roughly individual welfare.Almost all of Prof Sens work deals with development economics, as they are often employ to the welfare of the poorest raft in society. He has in any case examine actual famines. His best- managen work is Poverty and Famines An adjudicate on Entitlement and Deprivation. He challenges the common view that a shortage of food is the most important (sometimes the lone(prenominal)) invoice for famine. On the basis of caref ul study of a number of catastrophes he argues that famines have returnred even when the deliver of food was non significantly lower than during previousyears (without famines), or that famine-stricken field of honors have sometimes exported food. (Sens work is devoted to the welfare of the poorest people in society, 1998) Sen won the Nobel Prize especially for his work in welfare economics (Sin wins Nobel for Contribution to Welfare Economics, 1998). His contributions in this area include the affable prime(a) theory, welfare and poverty indexes, income dissemination, research on famine, collective decision making and individual welfare (Amartya Sen, 2000). The economists contribution to the social picking theory relates to land.Sen is a strike out of Adam Smith, but the social choice theory was originally developed by Marquis de Condorcet, a French mathematician who lived and worked during a period of revolution linchpin in the eighteenth century. The theory was mod ernized in the 1950s by Kenneth Arrow from Stanford University, who had similarly won a Nobel Prize for economics. But, Sens contribution to the theory is marked by its governmental implications. He was implicated about violence inflicted upon the poor in British India, which is wherefore his contribution was meant to be a textile to evaluate social progress (exemption as improvement).According to Sen, the bring in Domestic result and Gross National Product are unreliable. The reason is double firstly, these national income statistics do not measure income distribution as it is and secondly, there are various influences upon individual freedom as well as upbeat that these statistics fail to give consideration to, for pillow slip, disabilities and exposure to honorable illnesses in a contaminated environment. Sen further desired that the head-count technique of measuring the malice of poverty is insufficient.He did not only want to know how many people cut out below th e poverty line but also how far they fell below or roseate above the poverty line. It is possible to analyze income diversity among the poor as well with these statistics. Hence, Sen proposed a new poverty measure in the year 1979 ( immunity as Progress). This method was developed to restitution into consideration the relative deprivation of individuals ( freedom as Progress). Sen also helped in the development of the military personnel Development advocate published by the unite Nations Development Program.His contribution to the man Development Index included a vector of numerical figures to take into account the various influences on individual welfare that the Gross National Product would not have got (Freedom as Progress). Undoubtedly, this Index, inclusive of observe features of living conditions, is now the most widely current measure of comparative international welfare (Freedom as Progress). Sen was a witness to the Bengal famine of 1943, which is what inspired him to contribute to famine economics so much so that governments approximately the world have developed policies around his contributions.Most policymakers and commentators had previously believed that famines ensue when the bring home the bacon of food subsides. Although this makes perfect economic sense, Sen proved by dint of his study of famines in Bangladesh, India, and sub-Saharan Africa that famines also occur when the supply of food has not declined. In the year 1974, for example, Bangladesh was hit by a famine although end product of food was very high. Furthermore, Sen proved through with(predicate) research that it was not only the poorest people that were affected by famines rather, even those who had suddenly experienced a decline in income for some reason were affected by food shortage.As a result of his research, governments decided to set back the lost income of the poor during famines. Prior to this, they had simply hard on food distribution (Freedom as Progres s). Sen further found that famines do not happen in democratic countries. In India, for example, information spreads rapidly and criticism about policies is not discouraged, which is why the country has never experienced a famine. eventide though India is poorer than China, the latter experienced a famine that killed approximately thirty million people surrounded by 1958 and 1961.But, Sen did not just advocate democracy through this research. As he studied famine economics, he analyzed gender inequality to boot. According to him, democracy has not inspired India to save women from dying untimely year after year because of inequality in access to healthcare (Freedom as Progress). In fact, millions of women are equally affected by this problem in addition to domestic spend and social negligence in West Asia, marriage Africa, China and India (Freedom as Progress).Even if these problems are resolved, Sen has noted that selective abortion of effeminate fetuses is a new contributor t o the high rate of female mortality (Freedom as Progress). Of course, those who believe in aborting female fetuses would disagree with Sen that it is a social problem to reduce the female population thus. It is for this reason that Sens social choice theory revolves around democratic principles (Freedom as Progress). In other words, when there is general agreement, the choices made by society are uncontroversial.When opinions differ, the problem is to find methods for legal transfer together different opinions in decisions that concern everyone (Freedom as Progress). This theory of social choice analyzes the significance of individual decisions for collective welfare. Apart from analyzing the passing of gender inequality, Sen has used this theory to answer questions such as, When is it possible for majority rule to yield decisions that are clear and consistent? and, Because individuals have differing interests, how is it possible to know that the society is doing well?Branching i nto politics, Sens contribution to social choice theory makes it essential for democracies not only to perfect the process of elections but also to hold regular public meditates and discussions. He offers the example of India to illustrate this point. The country had voted out a effective political party on the basis of political discussions even if the result of the elections had appeared decisive (Freedom as Progress). Sen explains another use of the social choice theory with an example of India. There was public debate on the issue of whether poverty in India was on the decline.Upon analyzing the issue with the social choice theory, Sen discovered that drop-off in poverty only affected those who were already very close to the poverty line. It is for this reason that the economist continues to trust evaluation of income distribution through a variety of measures rather than Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Product alone. With his contribution to the Human Development I ndex, the economist has theoretical evidence that education and healthcare reforms will alleviate poverty in developing nations.Moreover, Sen believes that globalization can benefit the poorest people of the world to boot (Freedom as Progress). Of course, to make this dream a reality, policymakers mustiness be working around the Human Development Index. after(prenominal) all, violence, too, affects everybody. If poverty is not alleviated, economic progress must needs be dampened by war.References Amartya K. Sen. Retrieved Apr 1, 2009, from http//cepa. newschool. edu/het/profiles/sen. htm. Amartya Sen. (2000). LSE. Retrieved Apr 1, 2009, from http//www. lse. ac. uk/resources/LSEHistory/sen. htm. Freedom as Progress. (2004, Sep). People in Economics. Retrieved Apr 1, 2009, from http//www. imf. org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2004/09/pdf/people. pdf. Sin wins Nobel for Contribution to Welfare Economics. (1998, Oct 14). Rediff on the Net. Retrieved Apr 1, 2009, from http//www. rediff. com/ caper/1998/oct/14sen5. htm. Sens work is devoted to the welfare of the poorest people in society. (1998, Oct 14). Rediff on the Net. Retrieved Apr 1, 2009, from http//www. rediff. com/business/1998/oct/14sen2. htm.