Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

Fellows (1989—98). His work still takes him far away from one Cambridge to another, for the Master of Trinity is also now at the Center for Population and Development Study at Harvard. Yet some might say that he strayed furthest from Cambridge when becoming professor of economics at Oxford and a Fellow of Nuffield College (1977-80). As if this were not enough, he spent the next eight years as Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford and a Fellow of A l l Souls (1980-88). He is now back on track in the two Cambridges; yet two Cambridges do not cancel out an Oxford. In fact, some Oxonians might even imagine that one Oxford equals two Cambridges. Happily, such petty rivalries are left far behind by Prof. Sen's impressive list of accolades from so many major scholarly institutions. His honorary degrees are too numerous to list here but they come from leading universities in India, Europe, and North America. A Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow (and President i n 1984) of the Econometric Society, and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and of the American Philosophical Association . He has also served as President of the Indian (1989), the International (1986—89), and the American Economic Associations (1994). Such awards signal the respect accorded t o his thought and publications by his colleagues throughout that global society of intellectuals and researchers known as academia ; this recognition eloquently attests to the very significant contribution he has made to themore general understanding of economics as an intellectual discipline with far-reaching huma n and societal consequences that should not be ignored. His work in fact has implications for philosophy, sociology, and the history of ideas. Following the pioneering wor k of Kenneth A r r ow in particular, Prof. Sen has developed social choice theory, providing a general approach to evaluatin g and choosing between different social possibilities. This involves arriving at fuller understanding than was previously available of inequality, poverty, and welfare issues. As Prof. Sen points out in his enthralling Nobel lecture of last December (1998), T h e reach and relevance o f social choice theory can be very extensive indeed.' Enthralling may be a term used primarily of fiction rather than lectures in economics, the so-called dismal science. His technique, however, is to lead us to a series of questions, each one being amoment of suspense, such as 'When would majority rule yield unambiguous and consistent decisions?...How can we accommodate rights and liberties of persons while giving adequate recognition to their preferences?…How do we appraise social valuations of public goods such as t h e natural environment, o r epidemiological s e c u r i t y ? ' We w a n t t o k n o w t he answers t o his questions, in much the same way that we want to know what happens next in a plot. He does not ignore the questions that might destroy his own theories. He asks himself and us '...whether the pessimism associated with Arrovian structures in social choice theory must be seen to be devastating for welfare economics as a discipline.' He faces such questions and gives his answers. I n short, Prof. Sen is a writer as well as an economist. Through his 'capability approach' his analyses take into account not only income or gross Chinese Universit y Bulletin Sprin g . Summer 2 0 00