Amartya Sen and the Nobel Economics Prize

On October 14, the Nobel economics prize committee announced that Amartya Sen had won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. Three cheers for Dr. Sen. He should bask in the limelight. We, in the development sector, should use that light as a beacon to better understand Professor Sen's work.

International development is about improving peoples' lot. It runs the gamut from housing to happiness, from colonialism to cooperatives. Finding one's way in the myriad of options and pitfalls has been made a little bit easier by Amartya Sen. He has given us ethical standards for judging economic actions. He has given us a framework for understanding development as an inherently value-laden concept.

What is well-being? How do we measure it? How can we contribute to enhancing it? Sen argues for assessing what people actually have success in doing or being, rather than using income and consumption levels as proxies for well-being. It is this argument that has produced the United Nations Development program's Human Development Index. The poor are not a metaphor in his discussions of welfare, inequality, and poverty; they are individuals to be reckoned with.

The New York Times, in its announcement of the economics prize, noted that Professor Sen has said that in modern economics, juggling many balls badly is better than displaying virtuosity with one ball. Amartya Sen has managed to juggle many balls very well. In this display are lessons for all of us.

Laura Orlando

Related Readings

Human Well-Being and Economic Goals, eds. Frank Ackerman, David Kiron, Neva R. Goodwin, Jonathon M. Harris, and Kevin Gallagher. Island Press. 1997

Amartya Sen, "Justice: Means versus Freedoms." Philosophy and Public Affairs 19, 1990

Inequality Reexamined, Amartya Sen. Harvard University Press. 1992

Poverty and Famines, Amartya Sen. Oxford University Press. 1981

Amartya Sen, "The Economics of Life and Death." Scientific American 268 (5). May 1993.

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