Amartya Kumar Sen
 Presentation
by :-
Prashant Savaliya
Kamlesh Negi
 Omkar Khalan
Kamlajeet Kundra
Bhupendra Patil
BATCH -18 B
Amartya Kumar Sen (HON)
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He was born on 3 November 1933 in Santiniketan Univ campus , West Bengal.
His ancestral home was at Wari, Dhaka which is now in Bangladesh.
He is an Indian Nobel Prize-winning economist,
He is known for his work on
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Welfare economics
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Poverty and Famines
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Choice of Techniques
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Development as Freedom
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Economic Inequality
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Food Economics and Entitlements
He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in welfare economics
He received the Bharat Ratna award
He received the 2000 Leontief Prize for his outstanding contribution to economic theory
He received Life Time Achievement award by Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission
for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)
Some theories of Amartya Sen which we will
see
 Welfare economics
 Choice of Techniques
 Poverty and Famines
 Culture & Development
 What
is welfare ?
Welfare is financial assistance program funded by tax payers, for taxpayers who are no
longer capable of supporting themselves and/or their families.
OR In Simply - Governmental provision of economic assistance to persons in need
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What is welfare economics ?
– Welfare economics is concerned with evaluation of the level of individuals & social welfare &
its impact on economic & social policies
– The welfare of an individual represented by utility (i.e satisfaction )
– welfare can be adequately measured by monitory variable i,e either in dollars
or some other unit of currency
– It attempts to maximize the level of social welfare by examining the economic activities of the
individuals that comprise society.
 What
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is Social welfare ?
It is defined as the summation of the welfare of all the individuals in the society
by mean of aggregator function i.e (social welfare function )
Welfare can be measured either cardinally in terms of dollars , or measured in terms of
relative utility. The cardinal method is less used today because of aggregation problems it
make the accuracy of the method doubtful.
How to measure Welfare ?
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Amartya Sen has also created a formula to measuring welfare in a society, using
indicators like income per capita, which measures average salary of the society .The
formula is
Welfare = Y * (1 - G)
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Here Y is the income per capita and G is the Gini coefficient,
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Gini coefficient
The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1,
where 0 means perfect equality (everyone has the same income)
and 1 means perfect inequality (one person has all the income, everyone else earns
nothing). While the Gini coefficient is mostly used to measure income inequality, it
can be used to measure wealth inequality as well.
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The Gini coefficient is calculated using Lorenz curve diagram which is the area
between the line of perfect equality and the Lorenz curve, as a percentage of the
area between the line of perfect equality and the line of perfect inequality.
A perfectly equal income distribution in a society would be one in which every person has the same income.
In this case, the bottom N% of society would always have N% of the income.
Here perfectly equal distribution can be depicted by the straight line y=x; we call this line as line of perfect equality.
A perfectly inequal distribution, by contrast, would be one in which one person has all the income
and everyone else has none.
In that case, the curve would be at y=0 for all x<100, and y=100 when x=100. We call this curve the
line of perfect inequality.
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Social welfare function
A social welfare function, in welfare economics it is a function which gives a measure of welfare of
society, using number of economic variables as inputs.
Kenneth Arrow is an American economist proved that it is impossible to have a social welfare function
But Abram Bergson coma up with social welfare function in 1938.
The social welfare function can be expressed as a function of variables relevant to welfare, such as
income or life expectancy.
W = Y1 + Y2 + ....+ Yn
Where W is social welfare and Y is the income of each of the Xth individual in a society.
In this case, maximising the social welfare function means maximising the total income of the
people in the society, without regard to how incomes are distributed in society
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Alternatively, the social welfare function can also be expressed with Max-Min utility function (based
on the philosophical work of John Rawl)
W = min(Y1, Y2, .... ,Yn)
Here, the W-social welfare of society is taken to be related to the income of the poorest
person in the society, and maximising welfare would mean maximising the income of the poorest
person without regard for the incomes of the others.
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These two social welfare functions express very different views about how a society would need to be
organised in order to maximise welfare, with the first emphasizing total incomes and the second
emphasising the needs of the poorest
Unemployment
It is define as a state of affairs
when in a country there are a
large number of able-bodied
persons of working age who
are willing to work but cannot
find work at the current wage
levels.
Also People who are either
unfit for work for physical or
mental reason,or don`t want to
work.
Types of Unemployment
There are three main types of Unemployment.
Frictional Unemployment – Switching of company
Structural unemployment- Change technology
Cyclic unemployment – recession or depression
Causes of Unemployment in developed and undeveloped countries
•The nature of un employment in under-developed countries is quite
different from developed countries
•In Un-developed countries unemployment is chronic & long term in
nature . It is almost universally recognized that chronic unemployment is
not due to deficiency of aggregate effective demand rather it is due to
lack of land, capital & other complimentary recourses in term of total
population and labour force
•In developed countries Major part of unemployment in present day is of
cyclical nature and is due to deficiency of aggregate effective demand
•While in developing countries there is not much short term unemployment
According to some economists, disguised unemployment in agriculture
exists in densely populated countries such as India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, etc.
As defined by professor Rodan, disguised unemployment is the amount
of population in agriculture which can be removed from it without any
change in the method of cultivation, without leading to any reduction in
output.
Lack of stock of physical capital
Use of capital intensive techniques
Inequitable distribution of land
Rigid protective labour legislation
Role of Agriculture in employment generation
Lack of Infrastructure
Famines
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Famines doesn’t need to occur when food
supply is low. It can even occur when food
supply is high enough, but the people are
unable to buy it because they don’t have
any money
Causes of Famines are:
• Natural disasters (Floods, Drought, Volcanic eruptions,Earthquakes)
• Over Populated Areas, that are unable to feed masses of people.
• Poor Quality of Health Facilities.
• Govt. that have poor management of resources.
Causes of Mass Starvation
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Many of the biggest mass
starvations have been intentional
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Stalin targeted Ukranians in 1924,
Stalin proceeded to collectivize the
farms, expropriating the land, killing
thousands
While millions starved, food was
shipped out of the Ukraine and no
food was allowed in.
Desperate Ukraines ate dogs, cats,
bark. Cannibalism was not
uncommon.
At least 4 million died in the Ukraine.
In China during the “Great Leap
Forward,” some 30 million people
died of starvation.
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Mass Starvation in Bangladesh, 1974
• The 1974 famine in Bangladesh was not as same as the size of the
Ukraine or China, perhaps 26,000-100,000 people died of mass starvation
but it was probably the first televised starvation and it illustrates many
important themes.
Floods destoyed much of the rice
crop of 1974 at the same time as
world rice prices were increasing.
Before the floods destroyed rice they
destroyed livelihoods. The floods
meant that there was no work for
landless rural labourers who in
ordinary years would have been
employed harvesting the rice.
Without income from work and facing
rising world rice prices caused for
other reasons there was mass
starvation.
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As Amartya Sen puts it:
“A food-centred view tells us rather little about
starvation. It does not tell us how starvation can develop
even without declines in food availability. Nor does it tell
us – even when starvation is accompanied by a fall in
the food supply – why some groups had to starve while
others could feed themselves…What allows one group
rather than another to get hold of the food that is there?
These questions lead to the entitlement approach…For
example, a barber owns his labour power and some
specialized skill, neither of which he can eat, and he has
to sell his hairdressing services to earn an income to buy
food. His entitlement to food may collapse even without
any change in food availabilty…”
How famines can be prevented
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Supporting farmer in area of food insecurity, providing them
subsidized fertilizer and seed
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Increase food harvest and reduce food price
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Unintentional starvations can also be avoided since the main thing
that is required is the government will to redistribute wealth or
employment, and usually not much is required, to those people who
most need it.
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Democracy and Media alos play an imp role in Preventing Famines
> Famines have never happened in modern countries because
the Media and leaders of such nations are spurred into action by
free-reporting and political reasons respectively to save their
citizens.
What is Culture?
Culture is an integrated pattern of human
knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends
upon the capacity for symbolic thought and
social learning.
What is Development?
Economic development refers to increases in
the standard of living of a nation's population
associated with sustained growth from a simple,
low-income economy to a modern, high-income
economy. Its scope includes the process and
policies by which a nation improves the
economic, political, and social well-being of its
people.
How Culture & Development is interrelated / influence each other?
As per Amartya Sen, Culture matters are integral parts of the
lives we lead. If development can be be seen as enhancement
of our living standards, then the effort geared to development
can hardly ignore the world of culture.
He says that cultural conditions can exert a strong influence
on human behavior, and through that can affect economics
choices and business decision, as well as social and political
behavior.
What is Democracy ?
A political system in which the supreme power
lies in a body of citizens who can elect people
to represent them.
In Other Words Democracy is:
For the people, By the People, Of the People
Thank You