Arguments for a Better World

Amartya Sen has made deep and lasting contributions to the academic disciplines of economics philosophy and the social sciences more broadly. He has engaged in policy dialogue and public debate advancing the cause of a human development focused policy agenda and a tolerant and democratic polity. This argumentative Indian has made the case for the poorest of the poor and for plurality in cultural perspective. It is not surprising that he has won the highest awards ranging from the Nobel Prize in Economics to the Bharat Ratna India''s highest civilian honor. This public recognition has gone hand in hand with the affection and admiration that Amartya''s friends and students hold for him. This volume of essays written in honor of his 75th birthday by his students and peers covers the range of contributions that Sen has made to knowledge. They are written by some of the world''s leading economists philosophers and social scientists and address topics such as ethics welfare economics poverty gender human development society and politics. This first volume covers the topics of Ethics Normative Economics and Welfare; Agency Aggregation and Social Choice; Poverty Capabilities and Measurement; and Identity Collective Action and Public Economics. It is a fitting tribute to Sen''s own contributions to the discourse on Ethics Welfare and Measurement. Contributors include: Sabina Alkire Paul Anand Sudhir Anand Kwame Anthony Appiah A. B. Atkinson Walter Bossert Francois Bourguignon John Broome Satya R. Chakravarty Rajat Deb Bhaskar Dutta James E. Foster Wulf Gaertner Indranil K. Ghosh Peter Hammond Christopher Handy Christopher Harris Satish K. Jain Isaac Levi Oliver Linton S. R. Osmani Prasanta K. Pattanaik Edmund S. Phelps Mozaffar Qizilbash Martin Ravallion Kevin Roberts Ingrid Robeyns Maurice Salles Cristina Santos T. M. Scanlon Arjun Sengupta Tae Kun Seo Anthony Shorrocks Ron Smith Joseph E. Stiglitz S. Subramanian Kotaro Suzumura Alain Trannoy Guanghua Wan John A. Weymark and Yongsheng Xu.