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Choice, Welfare and Measurement
Choice, Welfare and Measurement contains many of Amartya Sen's most important contributions to economic analysis and methods, including papers on choice, preference, rationality, aggregation, and measurement. A substantial introductory essay interrelates his diverse concerns, and also analyzes discussions generated by the original papers, focusing on the underlying issues.
- GenresEconomics
469 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 2, 2017
Sen's contributions to economics, public policy and philosophy are profound. He has written many books, and many different KINDS of books. This book, however, is just a collection of essays.
All of the essays in this collection deal with the realm of welfare economics. There is no point in reading every single article, since there is a lot of repetition and crossfertilisation between them. The collection contains some of his best essays. The two related essays, "The Impossibility of the Paretian Liberal", and "Liberty, Unanimity and Rights" are worth the price of admission alone.
The collection suffers, however, from a lack of good editing. Aside from a short introduction by Sen himself, the collection does not feel like a coherent book as much as a selection of random papers.
The only editorial choice is that essays are bundled together, haphazardly, by theme; and all essays naturally relate to the themes of welfare economics - aggregation of utilities, social welfare functions, the conflict between utilitarianism and liberalism (among other moral theories)....
Half of the essays are incomprehensible to 99% of people due to the technical jargon and algebraic formulas contained herein. Nothing is done to mitigate this fact, and little context is given to the technical formulations. As a result, the reward of reading this essays varies greatly depending one's previous acquaintance with formal logic, analytical philosophy and welfare economics literature.
Mathematization and formalization of economics is a mixed blessing, so these essays also have dubious value. Sometimes it makes sense to make one's arguments as logically rigorous as possible. But it is not always clear what the advantages and disadvantages are of formalizing extremely simple insights. Sometimes natural language does the trick equally well, or even better.
Luckily for me the collection contains also plenty of essays written in perfectly lucid and readable prose. Sen's writing, at best, is informative, analytical and even occasionally funny. Out of the 20 essays contained in the collection, about 10 are written in clear and enjoyable, non-technical prose.
If one cares one bit about welfare economics, utilitarianism, liberalism and related issues, Sen's treatment of these many aspects of the field is phenomenal, even if you disagree with his conclusions. The same analytical rigour which metastasizes into occasional algebraic formulas also carries the text from one moment of lucidity to another, from one clever argument to another.
The thematic consistency of the essays makes for a long reading list, but like I said before, it is not necessary to read every single essay to get something out of this impressive if poorly edited collection. For reading, I would recommend, aside from the two aforementioned essays on "Paretian Liberalism", the following: "Equality of What?" (on different moral theories of equality), "Rational Fools" (a criticism of some of the methodological and anthropological assumptions of economics), "Behaviour and the Concept of Preference" (on Revealed Preference and behaviourism), and "Description as Choice" (on methodological realism and pragmatism).
Overall, a chaotic, maddening collection with some absolute gems. Pick and choose wisely.
All of the essays in this collection deal with the realm of welfare economics. There is no point in reading every single article, since there is a lot of repetition and crossfertilisation between them. The collection contains some of his best essays. The two related essays, "The Impossibility of the Paretian Liberal", and "Liberty, Unanimity and Rights" are worth the price of admission alone.
The collection suffers, however, from a lack of good editing. Aside from a short introduction by Sen himself, the collection does not feel like a coherent book as much as a selection of random papers.
The only editorial choice is that essays are bundled together, haphazardly, by theme; and all essays naturally relate to the themes of welfare economics - aggregation of utilities, social welfare functions, the conflict between utilitarianism and liberalism (among other moral theories)....
Half of the essays are incomprehensible to 99% of people due to the technical jargon and algebraic formulas contained herein. Nothing is done to mitigate this fact, and little context is given to the technical formulations. As a result, the reward of reading this essays varies greatly depending one's previous acquaintance with formal logic, analytical philosophy and welfare economics literature.
Mathematization and formalization of economics is a mixed blessing, so these essays also have dubious value. Sometimes it makes sense to make one's arguments as logically rigorous as possible. But it is not always clear what the advantages and disadvantages are of formalizing extremely simple insights. Sometimes natural language does the trick equally well, or even better.
Luckily for me the collection contains also plenty of essays written in perfectly lucid and readable prose. Sen's writing, at best, is informative, analytical and even occasionally funny. Out of the 20 essays contained in the collection, about 10 are written in clear and enjoyable, non-technical prose.
If one cares one bit about welfare economics, utilitarianism, liberalism and related issues, Sen's treatment of these many aspects of the field is phenomenal, even if you disagree with his conclusions. The same analytical rigour which metastasizes into occasional algebraic formulas also carries the text from one moment of lucidity to another, from one clever argument to another.
The thematic consistency of the essays makes for a long reading list, but like I said before, it is not necessary to read every single essay to get something out of this impressive if poorly edited collection. For reading, I would recommend, aside from the two aforementioned essays on "Paretian Liberalism", the following: "Equality of What?" (on different moral theories of equality), "Rational Fools" (a criticism of some of the methodological and anthropological assumptions of economics), "Behaviour and the Concept of Preference" (on Revealed Preference and behaviourism), and "Description as Choice" (on methodological realism and pragmatism).
Overall, a chaotic, maddening collection with some absolute gems. Pick and choose wisely.
to-keep-reference
October 3, 2018While welfarism was not explicitly invoked as a condition on its own, it is in fact—in a particular form—entailed by the conditions that Arrow imposed (the analytical process that yields this result is investigated and assessed in my Choice, Welfare and Measurement, 1982).
Capabilities and Happiness Pág.21
Capabilities and Happiness Pág.21
January 24, 2013
Better brush up on your economic analysis skills i.e. statistics and other economic models, for this dense but essential read; it's Amartya Sen, who is my TOP GURU economist of all time!!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews