Basic Facts

welfare economist born November 3, 1933 in West Bengal, India witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943 won Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998

Sen's Famine Theories

famines result from maldistribution of food, not actual food shortages famines are usually a result of the malfunctioning of social and political arrangements challenged common Malthusian theory (which states that food shortages cause famine)

Causes of Poverty
every human has "capabilities," such as: health age gender genetic endowments external environment social conditions these capabilities determine the way wealth is distributed poverty is caused by shortfalls in these capabilities, such as: lack of basic education few or poor health services large gender inequalities great wealth disparities skewed social stratification

Analyzing Poverty

it can be difficult to tell how impoverished people are because many people have acclimated themselves to poverty

people adapt and cut down their desires because they feel resigned to their deprived conditions

Sen's Impact
challenged traditional economic and social philosophies has shown that people are not impoverished because they are not talented or smart, but due to many other factors that are out of their control

has changed the way that governments, politicians, and economists view poverty has shown that poverty is just as important to the study of economics as wealth is

"The test of orderliness in a country is not the number of millionaires it owns, but the absence of starvation among its masses." - Mahatma Gandhi, 1921

Works Cited
Alexander, John M. The Sen Difference. Frontline Magazine (Madras, India) Vol. 22, No. Feb. 25 2005: 4+. SIRS Researcher. Web. 07 February 2010. Mitra, Sumit. The Conscience of Economics. India Today (New Delhi, India) Oct. 26, 1998: 18-23. SIRS Researcher. Web. 07 February 2010. National Geographic. Photo Galleries. 2 March 2010. <http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photogalleries>. Sen, Amartya. Autobiography. 8 Feb. 2010. <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1998/senautobio.html>. Sen, Amartya. The Possibility of Social Choice: Nobel Lecture. Trinity College, Cambridge, Britain. 8 Dec. 1998.