A life fighting against poverty from the academy

Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members. Sen is best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food. He helped to create the United Nations Human Development Index.In 2012, he became the first non-American recipient of the National Humanities Medal.

Amartya Sen’s books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and include Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970), On Economic Inequality (1973, 1997), Poverty and Famines (1981), Choice, Welfare and Measurement (1982), Resources, Values and Development (1984), On Ethics and Economics (1987), The Standard of Living (1987), Inequality Reexamined (1992), Development as Freedom (1999), and Rationality and Freedom (2002), The Argumentative Indian (2005), and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (2006), among others. His research has ranged over a number of fields in economics, philosophy, and decision theory, including social choice theory, welfare economics, theory of measurement, development economics, public health, gender studies, moral and political philosophy, and the economics of peace and war.

Economic unfreedom, in the form of extreme poverty, can make a person a helpless prey in the violation of other kinds of freedom.

Amartya Sen

He wrote about himself: “I was born in a University campus and seem to have lived all my life in one campus or another.” Continue reading Amartya Sen’s autobiography.

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Sources: Wikipedia and Harvard.edu