Sen, Amartya
Kumar,
1933–, Indian economist, b. Bengal, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1959. He has
taught at Jadavpur Univ., Kolkata (1956–58), the Univ. of Delhi
(1963–7l), the London School of Economics (197l–77), Oxford
(1977–88), and Harvard (1987–98, 2003–) and was the
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1998–2003). A specialist in
welfare and development economics who is concerned with social justice and
democracy, he helped develop social choice theory, did noted and influential
work on the causes of famine, and has been critical of the assumption that
self-interest is the prime economic motivator. In 1998 he received the Nobel
Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare
economics. Among his many works are Poverty and Famines: An Essay on
Entitlement and Deprivation (1981), Development as
Freedom (1999), An Uncertain Glory: India and Its
Contradictions (2013, with J. Drèze), and Home
in the World: A Memoir (2021).
See W. Kuklys, Amartya Sen's Capability Approach: Theoretical Insights and
Empirical Applications (2005); J. M. Alexander,
Capabilities and Social Justice: The Political Philosophy of
Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (2008); R. Gotoh and P.
Dumouchel, ed., Against Injustice: The New Economics of Amartya
Sen (2009).
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