Choice, Welfare and Measurement - Softcover

Sen, Amartya

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674127781 ISBN 13: 9780674127784

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Choice, Welfare and Measurement contains many of Amartya Sen's most important contributions to economic analysis and methods, including papers on choice, preference, rationality, aggregation, and measurement. A substantial introductory essay interrelates his diverse concerns, and also analyzes discussions generated by the original papers, focusing on the underlying issues.

About this title

Review:

Many of these papers are classics that one consults again and again. But [the collection] is more than a convenience: one gains something from reading these essays together.--Robert Sugden "Times Higher Education Supplement "

Amartya Sen, [the 1998] Nobel Prizewinner in Economics, has helped give voice to the world's poor. And that is no small matter, for the very lives of the world's poor may depend on having their voices heard. In a lifetime of careful scholarship, Sen has repeatedly returned to a basic theme: even impoverished societies can improve the well-being of their least advantaged members. Societies that attend to the poorest of the poor can save their lives, promote their longevity and increase their opportunities through education and productive work. Societies that neglect the poor, on the other hand, may inadvertently allow millions to die of famine--even in the middle of an economic boom, as occurred during the great famine in Bengal, India, in 1943, the subject of Sen's most famous case study...Sen [delivers a] powerful message: annual income growth is not enough to achieve development. Societies must pay attention to social goals as well, always leaning toward their most vulnerable citizens, and overcoming deep-rooted biases to invest in the health and well-being of girls as well as boys. In a world in which 1.5 billion people subsist on less than $1 a day, this Nobel Prize can be not just a celebration of a wonderful scholar but also a clarion call to attend to the urgent needs and hopes of the world's poor.--Jeffrey Sachs "Time "

Sen's mastery in the fields of social choice, the foundation of welfare economics, and, more broadly, distributive ethics and the measurement problems associated with these fields is unquestioned. This selection of articles fully reflects his work in these areas... A number of papers are classics.--Kenneth J. Arrow

Synopsis:

An introductory essay in this book interrelates the writer's diverse concerns, and also analyzes discussions generated by the original papers, focusing on the underlying issues of economic analysis and methods.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0674127781
• ISBN 13: 9780674127784
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 468