New directions in the economics of welfare: Special issue celebrating Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen's 75th birthday

摘要

The papers collected together in this special issue of the Journal of Public Economics celebrate the contributions of one of the world's leading intellectual figures. Amartya Sen is an economist whose contributions include work that has been influential, and often seminal, in social choice and welfare, poverty measurement, economic theory and philosophy, development, gender equity and the social sciences more broadly. For most academics, any one these contributions might have been enough for a life-time's work though in more recent years. Sen has gone on to become an advisor on the world stage with the ear of leaders around the world, and a long list of invitations to speak. The conference in Oxford from which this collection has emerged and which was organised by a variety of people including some of Sen's friends and former students, revealed what we knew already, namely that Amartya is both a quick and deep thinker, generous and accurate about the thoughts of others in debate, and has the gift of making arguments with a rare mix of charm and humour.