Amartya KUMAR SEN (অমর্ত্যকুমারসেন Ômorto KUMAR Shen ) (born the November 3rd 1933 with Santiniketan, India), is a economist. He received the Nobel Prize of economy in 1998, for his work on the Famine, on the Théorie of human development, on the economics of welfare, on the fundamental mechanisms of the Pauvreté, and on the political Libéralisme.
From 1998 to 2004, he was director of the Trinity College with the Université of Cambridge, becoming thus the first Asian academic to direct one of the colleges of Oxbridge. Amartya SEN is also recipient in the debate on the Mondialisation. It gave conferences in front of the leaders of the the World Bank and it is the honorary president of Oxfam.
Among its many contributions to the economy of the development, SEN made studies on the inequalities between the men and the women, whom he denounces by always using a female pronoun to refer to an abstract person. He is today professor in Lamont University with the Université Harvard. The books of Amartya SEN were translated in addition to thirty languages.
Biography
Formation and career
SEN was born with Santiniketan, in the West of the Bengal, a city whose university was rested by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, another Indian having obtained the Nobel Prize. The area of origin of its family is at Wari, Dhaka in what today is the Bangladesh. It is said that Tagore gave its name to Amartya SEN (“immortal” “Amartya” meaning).SEN integrated the St Gregory' S School into Dhaka in 1941. Its family has then immigrant in India at the time of the Partition of India in 1947. SEN studied in India with the Université Visva-Bharati, the Presidency College (Calcutta) and with the Delhi School off Economics before arriving at the Trinity College, Cambridge, where it obtained a Bachelor off Arts (BA) with mention in 1956 then a thesis (Ph.D) in 1959. During four years, he studied philosophical questions at the time of his stay in Trinity College.
He taught the economy with the Université of Calcutta, the Université Jadavpur, Delhi, the Université of Oxford, the London School off Economics, with the Université Harvard and directed the Trinity College, and the Université of Cambridge, between 1998 and 2004. In January 2004, SEN is gone back to Harvard. It also contributed to Eva Colorni Trust of old London Guildhall University.
Its international implication
Amartya SEN also counts among the founding members of the ethical, political and scientific Collegium international, association which wishes to bring answers intelligent and suitable until the people of the world vis-a-vis the new challenges of our time wait.
Principal work
Work of SEN, which marked the end of the year 1960 and the beginning of the year 1970, have helped has to develop Theory of choice social which was put at the day for the first time by work of the American economist Kenneth Arrow, which, whereas he worked in the years 1950 with the RAND Corporation, proved that all the modes of vote, that it is the Absolute majority, the qualified Majorité or the Status quo, is inevitably in conflict with the standards of the Démocratie. SEN showed under which conditions the Théorème of impossibility of Arrow could nevertheless be solved and extended and enriched the theory by social choice, thanks to its interests for the history of the economic thinking and philosophy.In 1981, SEN published Poverty and Famines: Year Essay one Entitlement and Deprivation , a book in which it shows that the famines are not only due to the lack of food but also to the inequalities caused by the mechanisms of distribution of food. The interest which SEN for the famine carries comes to him from its personal experience. At 9 years, it was pilot Famine in Bengal of 1943 during which three million people died. SEN concluded later that this disaster would not have taken place to be. He thinks that there was, at that time in India, a sufficient provisioning: the production was even higher than during the previous years when there no had been famines. But the cause of the famine of 1947 is the fact that the distribution of food was constrained because certain categories of the company (here rural workers) had lost their employment and thus their capacity to buy food. SEN thus underlines a certain number of economic factors and social as the fall of the wages, unemployment, the rise in the prices of food and the poverty of the delivery systems of food. These factors lead to the famine in certain groups of the company. Its approach of the “Capabilité” underlines the positive Liberté, i.e. the capacity of a person to being or doing something, rather than the negative Liberté, more common concept in economy which concentrates simply on the absence of interference. During the famine in Bengal, the negative freedom of the rural workers consisting in being able to buy food was not affected. However they died of hunger because they were not “positively” free to do anything. They could not be nourished: they did not have capability to escape death.
In addition to this work on the famine, the studies of SEN on the economy of the development had a considerable influence on the formulation of the Rapport on the Human development , published by the Programme of the United Nations for the Development. This annual publication which classifies the countries on the basis of social and economic indicator various must much with the contributions of SEN among other theorists of the social choice within the framework of the economic measure of poverty and the inequalities.
The revolutionary contribution of SEN to the economy of the development and the social indicators is in the concept of Capabilité developed in its article Equality off What . It defends the idea that the Gouvernement S should pay attention to the concrete capability of the citizens. The development will be an asset for the Human rights as a long time as the definition of the terms will remain fuzzy (the right is it something which must be given or something which cannot simply be removed?). For example, with the the United States, the citizens have a potential right of vote. For SEN, this concept is completely empty. So that the citizens have the capacity to vote, they must initially have “functionings” or operating processes. These operating processes various and are varied: broad like accessibility with education, or more specific like transport to the polling station. It is only when such barriers are raised that one can say that the citizen acts truly by personal choice. It is at each company to make a list of the minimal capabilities guaranteed by this company. To see an example of application practices cf Women and Human Development of Martha Nussbaum.
SEN also wrote an controversial article in the New York Review off Books entitled More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing , analyzing the impact on the mortality of the inequality of the rights between the men and the women in the developing countries, particularly in Asia. Other studies, like that of Emily Oster, concluded that the evaluation of SEN was over-estimated.
SEN indicated among the economists of the 20th century by his will to call in question the concept of value which had been a long time forgotten economic considerations “serious”. It expressed one of principal the critics of the economic model which poses the personal interest like first motivation of the human activity. Whereas its thought remains marginal, there is no doubt about the fact that its work helped to give again the priority with this field for the economists of development and even for the policies of the the United Nations.
The economics of welfare seeks to evaluate the economic policies in terms of effects on the wellbeing of the communities. SEN, which devoted its career to such questions, was called the “conscience of its profession”. Its detailed and influential study Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970), which attacks problems such as the individual rights, the law of the majority, accessibility with information, convinced of the researchers to turn to the questions of the basic wellbeing. SEN invented methods to measure poverty which make it possible to obtain essential information to improve the condition of the poor. It thus contributed to the invention of the Indicateur of human development (IDH) which measures poverty according to health, of the level of education and the standard of living. Moreover, its theoretical work on the inequalities made it possible to explain why there is less of women than men in India and in China whereas the opposite occurs in Occident or in the poor countries but where the women have the same accesses to the care, have less death rates at all the ages, live longer and represent then a small majority of the population. SEN proposed the idea that this ratio results from a better medical care and opportunities offered to the boys in these countries as well as the abortion specific to the sex from the child. The governments and the international organizations dealing with the food crises were influenced by work of SEN. He encourages those which set up these policies to pay attention not only to reduce the immediate suffering but also to find means so that the poor can fill the lack of money such as for example with projects of public works or the maintenance of the price stability. As a vigorous defender of political freedom, SEN thinks that the famines do not take place in the democracies which function because their leader is more sensitive at the requests of the citizens. To arrive at an economic growth, he thinks that social reforms just as of the improvements in education and the public health must be carried out before economic reforms.
Family
The father of SEN is Ashutosh SEN, and his mother Amita SEN which were born with Manikganj, Dhaka. His/her father taught chemistry with the Dhaka University. The first woman of SEN was Nabaneeta Dev. SEN, an Indian writer and scholar, with whom it had two children: Antara and Nandana. They divorced shortly after their arrival in London in 1971. His second wife was Eva Colorni, with which it lived after 1973. She died of a Cancer of the stomach in 1985. They had two children: Indrani and Kabir. His current wife is Emma Georgina Rothschild, an historian of the saving and expert in Adam Smith and Fellow of the King' S College (Cambridge). SEN raised only younger sound wire. Indrani is journalist in New York, and Kabir teaches the music close to Boston and has an rock group entitled Uncle Trouble. His/her oldest daughter Antara Dev. SEN is a journalist recognized Indian who, with her husband Pratik Kanjilal, publishes The Little Magazine . Nandana SEN is a known actress of Bollywood. SEN spends usually its winter vacation to India where he likes to make bicycle. It also goes in its house of Cambridge in Massachusetts, where Emma and spend their holidays of spring and their summer holidays to him. If it is asked him how he release, he answers: “I read much and I like to discuss with people. ”
Rewards
- In 1998, it accepted the Price of the Bank of Sweden in economic scenes in memory of Alfred Nobel (Nobel Prize of economy) for his work on the economics of welfare.
- In 1999, it accepted the Bharat Ratna, the highest Indian civil distinction.
- In 1999 it was made citizen of honor of the Bangladesh by the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in recognition of what it achieved by gaining the Nobel Prize, and since the origins of its family were in Bangladesh
- In 2002, it accepted the international humanistic Prix of the Humanistic International union and Layman.
- the medal Eisenhower, the United States in 2000.
- Companion off Honor, the United Kingdom, 2000.
- In 2003, the Indian chamber of commerce gave him Lifetime Achievement Award.
Quotations
- the nonsense of the Théorie of the public choice is shown by the Nobel Prize of economy Amartya SEN in the small following scenario: “Can you show the way to me towards the station? ” request the foreigner. “Certainly” known as the indigenous one, showing the direction opposed towards the post office, “and can you deposit me this letter on your way? ” “No problem”, known as the foreigner deciding to open it to see whether there is something of value inside.
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While speaking about the sanctions against the Burma: they “are likely more to be effective than anywhere in the world - if and only if the other countries decide to apply them. ”
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Réduire corruption in the developing countries by opening the markets should be a sufficient reason to liberalize even if that does not generate other material benefit.
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No famine substantial took place in a democratic and independent country with a relatively free press.
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