This unique volume is the first to examine Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen's ideas through the lens of gender. Therefore, I will go into areas, goals and a sample of measuremen In the beginning, I will give a brief overview of development as a general conception in economics. The theoretical background to Sen's approach, however, is not that intensively discussed and so my aim is to contribute to the understanding of the theoretical structure of his idea. I will focus on the theoretical structure of his conception and will not go into details regarding empirical and historical data that can easily be found in standard literature on development economics. In this paper I seek to present Sen's theoretical conception of development as freedom and to provide both the background for tracing the process of origin as well as some exemplary applications to give an idea of the impact of his vision on economic problems. He suggests to define freedom as the primary goal for societies and to measure the achievements in the space of feasible functionings, the so-called capability set. Another, indeed very famous, proposal originates from the work of Amartya Sen. The ideas range from income and wealth maximization (often expressed in the per capita GNP) over "the pursuit of happiness" as an "unalienable right" in the US Declaration of Independence of 1776 to well-known measures of "something else" such as the Gross National Happiness in Bhutan (cf. Until recent times, economists struggle for a commonly accepted primary "end" as an overall policy goal.
He concluded with deep insight that "wealth is obviously not the good we seek, for the sole purpose it serves is to provide the means of getting something else " (Aristotle, 1975, p. Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Economics - Economic Cycle and Growth, grade: 1,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: About 2500 years ago the brilliant Greek philosopher Aristotle surveyed in his Nicomachean Ethics the ends to which our conduct should be directed. Sen's evaluation is all the more powerful for its clarity: "The freedom-centered perspective has a generic similarity to the common concern with "quality of life." In many ways, measuring income does not account for various "unfreedoms" (manmade or natural bars to wellbeing) that hinder development. Evaluating the relevance of the current thinking behind development, Sen concludes that the term 'freedom' cannot simply be about income. He concludes that an evaluation of true freedom must necessarily include the freedom to access social services such as healthcare, sanitation and nutrition, just as much as it must acknowledge economic and political freedoms. He says people tend to think of freedoms as economic (the freedom to enter into market exchanges) or political (the freedom to vote and be an active citizen), and tries to understand why the definition has been so narrow hitherto. Having come to the conclusion that development is best summed up as the expansion of freedom, Sen examines traditional definitions and understandings of the term.
Development as Freedom is essential reading.Īmartya Sen uses his 1999 work Development as Freedom to evaluate the processes and outcomes of economic development. In the new global economy, where, despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers-perhaps even the majority of people-he concludes, it is still possible to practically and optimistically restain a sense of social accountability. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from association with any particular historical, intellectual, political, or religious tradition, Sen clearly demonstrates its current applicability and possibilities. Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. By the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Economics, an essential and paradigm-altering framework for understanding economic development-for both rich and poor-in the twenty-first century.