Amartya Sen

Bio: Amartya Sen is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Poverty & Human rights. The author has an hindex of 149, co-authored 689 publications receiving 141907 citations. Previous affiliations of Amartya Sen include Trinity College, Dublin & University of Chicago.

The hidden penalties of gender inequality: fetal origins of ill-health.

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the interconnections between gender inequality and maternal deprivation, on the one hand, and the health of children (of either sex) and of adults that the children grow into (again, of either sex). The basic message of the paper is that women's deprivation in terms of nutrition and healthcare rebounds on the society as a whole in the form of ill-health of their offspring-males and females alike-both as children and as adults. There are a variety of pathways through which women's deprivation can affect the health of the society as a whole. This paper focuses on the pathways that operate through undernourishment of the mother. Maternal deprivation adversely affects the health of the fetus, which in turn leads to long-term health risks that extend not just into childhood but into adulthood as well. There are, however, important differences in the way children and adults experience the consequences of maternal deprivation via fetal deprivation. In particular, the pathways that lead to their respective risk factors and the circumstances under which those risk factors actually translate into ill-health are very different. These differences are best understood through the concept of 'overlapping health transition' in which two different regimes of diseases coexist side by side. Gender inequality exacerbates the old regime of diseases among the less affluent through the pathway of childhood undernutrition. At the same time it also exacerbates the new regime of diseases among the relatively more affluent through a pathway that has come to be known as the 'Barker hypothesis'. Gender inequality thus leads to a double jeopardy-simultaneously aggravating both regimes of diseases and thus raising the economic cost of overlapping health transition.

A sociological approach to the measurement of poverty: a reply to professor peter townsend

Abstract: I AM grateful to Professor Peter Townsend for writing such a forceful rejoinder to my paper, "Poor, Relatively Speaking". He has confined his attention mainly to the relationship between my paper and his own work, and from his presentation, the reader might get the impression that my paper was primarily devoted to taking "issue with part of my [Townsend's] work on poverty" (p. 659). In fact, that paper was mostly concerned with other-more general-questions about the concept of poverty, though it did inter alia refer to Townsend's work, along with the works of several other contributors to the literature on poverty. I am very happy to respond to Townsend's points, but I believe it is necessary to state first the thrust of my paper, so that Townsend's specific comments can be assessed in that general perspective. Peter Townsend clearly is a truly "complete" sociologist. Not only does he examine my reasoning, which he finds "very confused" and "theoretically naive", he also provides a sociological explanation of my taking on a task in which I have evidently failed so badly. He points out that my "expertise is rooted in third world economies, especially that of India" (p. 663), and while I have, it appears, tried "gradually" to extend my work "to include comparisons with highly industrialized societies", I have been "stung by different theoretical approaches developed in other work published at about the same time" (p. 663). Thus it is that I have had to enter "the fray more openly"-the hard world of "theoretical approaches", and seem to have produced all this "very confused stuff". Townsend combines his explanation of my predicament, related to my third-worldly roots, with an offer of assistance, and I must acknowledge that there is something of the kindness of the U.K. Immigrants Advisory Service in his generous offer to

Goals, Commitment, and Identity

Abstract: The choice of behavioral assumptions in economics tends to pull us in two different—sometimes contrary—directions. The demands of tractability can conflict with those of veracity, and we can have a hard choice between simplicity and relevance. We want a canonical form that is uncomplicated enough to be easily usable in theoretical and empirical analysis. But we also want an assumption structure that is not fundamentally at odds with the real world, nor one that makes simplicity take the form of naivety. There is a genuine conflict here—a conflict that cannot be easily disposed of either by asserting the need for simplification in theorizing or by pointing to the need for realism. What we have to face is the need for discriminating judgment, separating out the complications that can be avoided without much loss and the complexities that must be taken on board for our analysis to be at all useful. The nature of the behavioral foundation of economics poses a particularly difficult problem. The ability of groups and societies to deal with conflicts of interests, and of goals, among their members depends largely on the way individuals think and act and how they assess their respective objectives, achievements, and obligations. I shall argue that in analyzing the so-called privateness of individual orderings, we have to make some basic distinctions. In particular, distinctions will be made, in section 3, among: (1) self-centered welfare; (2) self-welfare goal, and (3) self-goal choice. The analysis will draw on the differences between different aspects of "privateness."

On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

Abstract: ▪ Abstract Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.

Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices

Abstract: A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

Dynamics of dark energy

Abstract: We review in detail a number of approaches that have been adopted to try and explain the remarkable observation of our accelerating universe. In particular we discuss the arguments for and recent progress made towards understanding the nature of dark energy. We review the observational evidence for the current accelerated expansion of the universe and present a number of dark energy models in addition to the conventional cosmological constant, paying particular attention to scalar field models such as quintessence, K-essence, tachyon, phantom and dilatonic models. The importance of cosmological scaling solutions is emphasized when studying the dynamical system of scalar fields including coupled dark energy. We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations allowing us to confront them with the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure and demonstrate how it is possible in principle to reconstruct the equation of state of dark energy by also using Supernovae Ia observational data. We also discuss in detail the nature of tracking solutions in cosmology, particle physics and braneworld models of dark energy, the nature of possible future singularities, the effect of higher order curvature terms to avoid a Big Rip singularity, and approaches to modifying gravity which leads to a late-time accelerated expansion without recourse to a new form of dark energy.