Amartya Sen: His Contribution to Welfare Economics - Essay Example

Being one of the first economists to break away from capitalist theories and assumptions, Sen brought a whole new perspective to studying economic activity. In his influential work Collective Choice and Social Welfare, published in 1970, Sen argued that self-interest is not the only motivation behind economic transactions and that proper social welfare is incompatible with the conventional model.

He also discovered explanations for skewered sex ratio in developing economies like India and China, whereby he attributed the economic un viability of poorer families as the reason for this disparity. Today, Sen's ideas and proposals find application in real-time operations. For example, Sen's guidelines for calculating poverty and economic standards are widely used in the developing world. His proposals to alleviate starvation and famine are also followed in many Third-World countries, especially India, where no major famines were witnessed in the last few decades.

By concerning himself with the poor sections of under-developed and developing countries, and by coming up with feasible solutions to their most pressing problems, Amartya Sen can truly be considered a doyen of 'welfare economics'.