Amartya Sen
Whose welfare counts
The argument
A policy can improve a national total while leaving the poorest people no better off. Sen’s work asks what information we need to judge welfare, poverty and decisions made on behalf of society.
Counting everyone below a poverty line misses how far below it they are and how hardship is distributed. Sen also examines how collective decisions can take individual values and rights into account.
A question to consider
If a policy raises average income, what would you need to know about who gains and who loses before calling it a success?
An illustration for this Library, not a policy recommendation attributed to Amartya Sen.
Keep in mind
A better measure makes a tradeoff easier to see; it does not choose the policy for us. This essay covers the research described by the Academy in 1998, not Sen’s later work or a position on a current dispute.
This is a reading essay. It has no questionnaire scores or position on the Worldview Map.
Read the source
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org · 1998
The Academy’s 14 October 1998 explanation of Sen’s research contributions.