Noble Prize Economist Amartya Sen Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Noble Prize Economist Amartya Sen - Term Paper Example He is widely regarded as the Mother Teresa of economics because of his contributions to the poor. He is currently serving in two universities; in Thomas W. Lamont University as the Professor of Economics and in Harvard University as the Professor of Philosophy. Apart from that he is a distinguished fellow in many other famous universities and institutions like Harvard Society of Fellows, All Souls College, Oxford, Trinity College, Cambridge etc. This paper briefly analyses the contributions of Amartya Sen as an economist to the world. â€Å"Amartya Sen was born on 3 rd November 1933 in Santiniketan, West Bengal, India. His ancestral home was in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His family migrated to India following the partition of India in 1947†(Amartya Sen). The meaning of ‘Amartya’ is immortal. The renowned scholar of Indian literature, Rabindranath Tagore was the one who proposed the name of Amartya Sen. Rabindranath Tagore was one of the best friends of Amartya’s fa ther. Sen started his school education in Dhaka; however, the division of India forced Sen and his family to migrate to India in 1947. The latter part of his school education was in Visva-Bharati University school. He has joined Presidency College, Kolkata, for his college education and completed his First Class First in his B.A. (Honours) in Economics. He left the Presidency College as the most eminent student of the 1953 batch. He has continued his higher studies in Trinity College, Cambridge, and completed a First Class BA (Honours) from there in 1956. He has enrolled for a Ph.D. in Economics in Trinity College itself after the completion of BA (Honours) from there. During the same period itself, he was appointed as the Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at Jadavpur University, Calcutta. Later he returned to Trinity College and completed his Ph.D. in Economics. Within economics, he has made original and critical contributions to development theory, planning, capita l and growth theory, investment appraisal, the study of technology and employment, welfare economics, social choice theory, poverty and inequality measurement, issues in the causes and redressal of famines and destitution, and population policy (Subramanian). Amartya Sen is well known for his works for the poor. As mentioned earlier, he is currently regarded as the Mother Teresa of economics. The theory of social choice was developed by Amartya Sen. In his book â€Å"Poverty and famines† published in 1981, Amartya argued that famine occurs not only because of shortage of food, but also because of the inequalities built in to the mechanisms for distributing food (Amartya Sen). Masny of the earlier economists cited the food shortage as the major reasons for famine. However, Amartya was able to prove that even the produced food is not used up properly because of the problems in the distribution system. For example, in India, the government is distributing food to the poor people with the help of rationing system. However, because of the delays in completing the administrative procedures in supplying the food from the food go-downs to the ration shops, a substantial portion of the food items wasted. In other words, the bureaucracy is causing problems in the safe transport of the food items from the ware-houses to the ration shops in India. The increased percentage of corruption in bureaucracy is delaying the paper works. Thus, Amartya was able