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 causation and prevention of famines: A reply

Abstract: Nolan's [1993] present ‘critique’, like his two previous ‘critiques’ of my work [Nolan, 1991; Nolan and Sender, 1992], draw liberally on misconstruction of what I have said. The distortions cover a vast field, including the concept of entitlements, the nature of famines in general (and of the Chinese famine in particular), the roles of food production, transport, and wars, and so on. In my reply I have tried to identify the misrepresentations in some detail. What Nolan calls ‘Sen's approach’ is his own creation, and the criticisms that Nolan makes of that approach should be addressed by its author, to wit, Nolan. I have tried to spell out the respects in which the analyses I have presented on famines differ from the views, conjectures and slogans cheerfully attributed to me by Peter Nolan.

Individual Preference as the Basis of Social Choice

Abstract: Social choice theory is an analytical discipline which makes extensive use of axiomatic methods. Many of its strengths and weaknesses relate precisely to this analytical character, including the strength arising from its interpretational versatility and the weakness of a tendency towards formal neglect of substantive issues. The subject of this essay is this mixed pattern of virtues and vices.

Economic regress : concepts and features

Abstract: Different criteria for measuring economic regress show varying results. Alternative procedures involve parametric variations in the focal variable (such as real income, gross domestic product - GDP - or mortality rates), time stretch (long-run decline or persistent short-run crises such as famines), relativity (absolute decline as distinct from relative setbacks), and unit of aggregation (such as broad regions, countries, classes, genders, and income groups). For example, over the long term, absolute GDP per capita has declined in several countries, but mortality rates of children under age five have improved for each. Regress in under-five mortality can be assessed in relative terms (such as comparison with half the median improvement). There is some evidence of growing divergence in the space of these mortalities. The paper uses some of these perspectives to analyze the nature of economic regress, to identify some experiences in that direction, to comment on their causal antecedents, and to indicate the necessity for going beyond the intercountry picture (despite the usefulness of that picture). The need to supplement detailed economic diagnoses (such as a shortage of investment) with broader investigations of the political economy of civil wars and military governments, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, emerges as one of the imperatives in this field.

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.