Amartya Sen

Development As Freedom

September 13, 1999

From the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science: the most comprehensive and accessible explanation of his stunningly powerful theory of global economic development, which places individual human freedom and the general welfare of the world's population squarely at the center of economic thought.

Restoring and renewing the point of view of "economic development as the expansion of the real freedoms that people enjoy" Development As Freedom systematically argues for an understanding of the relation between economics and human capability and possibility. Amartya Sen's analysis takes as its perspective the welfare of all the world's people (including those denied the most elementary forms of freedom, such as freedom from hunger, illiteracy, and early death), and demonstrates how only through the expansion of democracy can economic, social, and political considerations be integrated to produce policies conducive to worldwide economic development beneficial to all.

Like Adam Smith's work, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Development As Freedom provides the intellectual framework for a radically new understanding of economic activity and its previously unimagined possibilities for global progress.

Amartya Sen is the master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. He is also Lamont University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, where he continues to teach courses. He lives in Cambridge, England.

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