Can anybody recommend to me introductory literature on Amartya Sen's capabilities-based approach to economic welfare? Sen seems to have written a lot. Where should one start?
I need literature that suggests how to encapsulate aspects of Sen's theory in equations. Ultimately, I am interested in including a function in simulations, including asessing the effect of a well or ill fed population.
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12 years ago
5 comments:
This paper by Robeyns and Kuklys might help as might their paper on measuring a developed country's standard of living. There are lots of links from the Global Equity Initiative home page.
My not overly well informed impression is that a full work through of the capability approach is a massive task that on one hand is not yet complete and on the other is at least being tackled systematically, that is with a broader plan than required for individual economics papers.
Many of the people involved are helpful and cooperative.
The capabilities approach is a framework for looking at distribution mechanisms, it is not a model.
There is a good overview clarifying these issues by Osmani in Basu et al, Choice, Welfare, Development. I wouldn't buy the book though, but it's great if you can get it at a library.
The standard reference is still Sens Poverty and Famines.
Jack and Michael, thanks for the recommendations. Michael, I hope you find the next post amusing.
I do. :-)
If this link is still of interest... Sen's lecture "The Equality of What" given at Stanford in 1979 is thought to be the beginning of the Capabilities Approach - or so I'm told - I have no training as an economist or a philosopher. http://culturability.fondazioneunipolis.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files_mf/1270288635equalityofwhat.pdf
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