Much of Amartya Sen’s work has been directly policy-related, but his methodology of policy analysis has not been explained in detail. Action-related social science involves value-imbued procedures that guide the numerous unavoidable choices. This theme was explored earlier by authors close to Sen’s milieu such as Streeten and Stretton, and by forerunners including Dewey and Myrdal. Assisted by Jean Drèze, Sen has evolved a form of policy analysis guided by humanist values rather than those of mainstream economics. Features of the methodology include: 1) A wider range of values employed in valuation, with central attention to: how do and can people live? 2) Conceptual investigation of the wider range of values. 3) Use of the wider range of values to guide choice of topics and boundaries of analysis. 4) Hence a focus on human realities, not on an arbitrary slice of reality selected according to commercial significance and convenience for measurement. 5) Use of the wider range of values to guide other decisions in analysis; thus a focus on the socio-economic significance of results. 6) A matching focus on a wide range of potential policy means. The paper characterizes Sen’s policy analysis methodology, its roots in earlier work, and its relations to the UNDP Human Development approach and kindred approaches.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: