2. 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

3. 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)

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

5. Analyzing
Poverty
it can be difficult to tell how people adapt and cut down
impoverished people are their desires because they feel
because many people have resigned to their deprived
acclimated themselves to conditions
poverty

6. Sen's Impact
challenged traditional
economic and social
philosophies
has shown that people are has changed the way that
not impoverished because governments, politicians,
they are not talented or and economists view
smart, but due to many poverty
other factors that are out of has shown that poverty
their control is just as important to
the study of economics
as wealth is

7. "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

8. 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/sen-
autobio.html>.
Sen, Amartya. “The Possibility of Social Choice: Nobel Lecture.”
Trinity College, Cambridge, Britain. 8 Dec. 1998.