Development as Freedom

First published in 1999, Development as Freedom is a book focused on international development and written by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. Some of the topics of this book: Amartya Sen is an Indian-born Cambridge economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998. He was praised by the Prize Committee for bringing an "ethical dimension" to a field recently dominated by technical specialists. Based on the example of the former Sov... more

First published in 1999, Development as Freedom is a book focused on international development and written by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. Some of the topics of this book: Amartya Sen is an Indian-born Cambridge economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998. He was praised by the Prize Committee for bringing an "ethical dimension" to a field recently dominated by technical specialists. Based on the example of the former Soviet Union, Sen argued that political liberties are necessary for sustainable development. He also tackled the paradox of the Chinese hare and the Indian tortoise in terms of economic growth, pointing to the fact that China had invested in general literacy and basic health before opening its economy in 1979, while the "socialist regime" in India in the 1960s and 70s neglected those very areas in pursuit of full nationalisation under the license Raj. While Indian democratic processes can be painfully slow, they provide a firmer guarantee of... less