Political Economy of Hunger: Volume 1: Entitlement and Well-being: 001 (WIDER Studies in Development Economics) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019828635X ISBN 13: 9780198286356

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 1991

Synopsis

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

WIDER Studies in Development Economics

The World Institute for Development Economics Research, established in 1984, started work in Helsinki in 1985, with the financial support of the Government of Finland. The principal purpose of the Institute is to help identify and meet the need for policy-oriented socio-economic research on pressing global and development problems and their inter-relationships. WIDER's research projects are grouped into three main themes: hunger and poverty; money, finance, and trade; and development and technological transformation.

BL Sen is an internationally renowned, prizewinning economist

This volume is the first of three addressing a wide range of policy issues relating to the role of public action in combating hunger and deprivation in the modern world. It deals with the background nutritional, economic, social, and political aspects of the problem of world hunger.

Topics covered include the characteristics and causal antecedents of famines and endemic deprivation, the interconnections between economic and political factors, the role of social relations and the family, the special problems of women's deprivation, the connection between food consumption and other indicators of living standards, and the medical aspects of undernourishment and its consequences.

Several contributions also address the political background of public policy, in particular the connection between the government and the public, including the role of newspapers and the media, and the part played by political commitment and by adversarial politics and pressures. Taken together, these essays provide a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the problem of hunger and deprivation, and an important guide for action.

About this title

Review

Sen and his associates deserve a lot of credit for bucking the general trend. (Times Higher Education Supplement)

What makes the work of Drèze and Sen so worthy of respect is that it is not reliant on theory or on indignation but firmly based on detailed research and analysis of all aspects of the problem. (William St Clair, Financial Times)

the authors are highly respected and the series draws on an extraordinary data base and comparison between countries. Bringing all this together is Amartya Sen. Lamont University Professor at Harvard, who has an unparalleled reputation for his work on famine, equity, and development economics ... This series forms the most definitive recent analysis of the problems of hunger and deprivation in the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The range of issues and countries covered is nothing short of extraordinary. (Dissent)

This is an uncommonly fine collection of papers by prominent authors. A valuable addition to upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections in development economics. (C.L. Nelson, Davidson College, CHOICE, Dec '91)

a considerable, and highly stimulating contribution (Pramit Chaudhuri, University of Sussex, The Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2, Jan '92)

a major research effort by 26 well known authors ... The Political Economy of Hunger is essential reading for those academics customarily counselling policy makers. The volume is rich with warnings about assumptions and suppositions, habitually found in official documents, which are partially untrue, sometimes untrue or simply untrue. It is obligatory reading for development administrators engaged in the transfer of resources to abate hunger in low income economies in a world with a billion hungry and poor and half a billion without energy for minimal activity and growth. (The Round Table)

Unquestionably the most satisfying book - although on a very grim subject - that I read this year is the two-volume The Political Economy of Hunger edited by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze. (Indian Review of Books, Oct. '92)

Those who wish an in-depth, sometimes technical analysis of the complex problems and interrelationships among politics, economics and hunger will find this book to be a valuable resource. (Ruth MCNabb Dow, Eastern Illinois University, Journal of Nutrition Education, July/August 1992)

This is obviously an important book with immediate implications for countless lives. Those who choose not to turn its pages will be deprived of an intellectual treat. (John Komlos, University of Pittsburgh, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXX (September 1992))

The array of articles in all three Drèze and Sen volumes is astounding. (Thomas R. DeGregori, University of Houston, Africa Today, 4th Quarter 1992)

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019828635X
• ISBN 13: 9780198286356
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 516
• Editor: Drèze Jean, Sen Amartya