Amartya Sen

b. 1933 · India · Economics, Philosophy

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1998

Recast famine as a failure of entitlement, not food supply.

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Talks and interviews

Continuity of ideas

Who shaped Amartya Sen, and who they shaped

Inherited from4

  • Gunnar Myrdal

    1898 – 1987 · Economics, Political Economy

    Asian Drama's institutional poverty analysis frames Sen's welfare economics.

  • John Rawls

    1921 – 2002 · Philosophy, Law

    Sen's Idea of Justice is a sustained argument with Rawlsian ideal theory.

  • John Stuart Mill

    1806 – 1873 · Political Economy, Philosophy

    Sen's capability approach reworks Mill's liberty into what people are actually able to do.

  • Karl Popper

    1902 – 1994 · Philosophy

    Falsifiability and open-society argument run through Sen's critique of dogma in policy.

Passed the work to2

  • Esther Duflo

    1972 · Economics

    Capability metrics motivate the outcome measures randomised trials evaluate.

  • Muhammad Yunus

    1940 · Economics, Business

    Sen's freedom-as-development argument is the theory microcredit put into practice.

Sources and references

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