Amartya Sen won the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics.
Sen’s work examined how poverty, famine, inequality, and social choice should be understood and measured. The committee particularly recognized his analysis of welfare economics and his work on the measurement of deprivation. His approach looked beyond income alone to the real opportunities people have to live the kinds of lives they value.
Sen developed the capability approach, which evaluates well-being through capabilities and functionings rather than simply through resources or utility. He also studied famines, arguing that major famines can occur without an overall shortage of food when people lose access to food through unemployment, price changes, or distribution failures.
Sen was born in 1933 in what is now Santiniketan, India. He taught at institutions including Harvard University and the University of Cambridge and wrote the influential 1999 book Development as Freedom.