Discuss Sen’s capability welfare theory of economic development

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This theory brings together a range of ideas that were previously excluded from the traditional approaches to economics of welfare.
The focus on the approach is on what individuals are able to do.
Initially Sen argued for five components in assessing capability:
a. The importance of real freedom in the assessment of a person’s advantage
b. Individual differences in the ability to transform resources to valuable activities
c. The multivariate nature of resources giving rise to happiness
d. A balance of non-characteristic and materialistic factor in evaluating welfare
e. Concern for the distribution of resources within the society
Together with others, Sen has helped to make capability approach predominant as a paradigm for policy debate in human development where it inspired the creation of the United Nations human development, a popular measure of human development capturing capabilities in health, education, income and environment.
The approach emphasizes functional capabilities, substantive freedoms such as the ability to engage in economic transactions or participate in political activities instead of issues such as utility where poverty is classified as capability deprivation.
The emphasis is not only an how human beings function but also on their having capabilities to achieve outcomes that they value and have reasons o value as everyone could be deprived of such capabilities in many ways such as ignorance, government oppression, lack of financial resources of false consciousness
Sen used two keywords in the developed of his capability approach:
a. Functionings are states and activities constituting of a person’s being and can vary from elementary things to a complex state.
He explains that functionings are crucial to an adequate understanding of the capability approach because capability is conceptualized as the freedom to achieve valuable functionings
b. Capabilities denote a person’s ability and capability to generate taking into account relative personal characteristics and external factor.
Capabilities are not merely concerned with achievement but rather the freedom of choice too.

Dana05 answered the question on July 3, 2019 at 11:33

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Discuss Sen’s capability welfare theory of economic development

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