Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

domestic product but also quality of life and the capacity for a society to offer people what they need, such as education and health care. His influence can be seen i n a range of things from social choice theory, the more informe d measurement of poverty and inequality, to the Human Development Report. His work complements that of other economists with ethical as well as purely technical interests. His work has helped us at The Chinese University of Hong Kong by providing colleagues and students with insights for considering the welfar e of our own society. The reasons for this respect and recognition may be found in his many publications, such as On Economic Inequality (1997; 1973) a n d Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1982; 1981). The first book, based on the Radcliffe Lectures he gave at Warwick almost 30 years ago, combined analytical and mathematical thinkin g with intuitive interpretation, in the basic belief that the significance of the research and its results consist in what Prof. Sen points out with incisive clarity: their 'relevance to normal communication an d to things that people argue about and fight for.' I n the preface to the second book I mentioned, he invokes Shakespeare's dramatization of 'poor naked wretches' in King Lear, and faces the fact that some might be 'impatient' with the academic anatomy of poverty. Poverty is horrifying but it is complex and its causes little understood. The questions raised b y enquiries into poverty in developing countries are extremely difficult to answer. Prof. Sen's focus is on causes of starvation and famine. He is thus involved in the analysis of complex 'entitlement systems' in economies. The questions on poverty indexes and the causes of specific famines that he raises and the answers he gives go to the heart 一 in every sense of the wor d — of economies and societies, combining methodology f r om economics with philosophical rigour and considere d ethical concerns. His wo r k is distinguished, then, by key contributions to social choice theory and welfare economics. According to other leading economists, Prof. Sen's work has opened up new fields and perfected the earlier results of others, besides inspiring new endeavours by his colleagues. Theories of social choice, individual preference, and welfare, together wit h measurements of poverty and real income, constitute the wide range of issues his work has tackled so impressively. Here is a third generation academic wh o has lived his life in universities, yet has never been trapped in an ivory tower; one who amid all the thinking, writing, abstractions and distractions of academic life, has never lost touch wit h the realities of deprivation. The urgent need to understand the economic factors behind the misery that still abounds in the world is his fundamental motivation. Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Amartya Sen, Master o f Trinity College, Cambridge, is the first Asian to be named Nobe l laureate i n economics. He has shown us how to understand more clearly the complexities of poverty and given us a better chance of helping the poorest of the poor at a time when common perception has it that the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer. His work is as compelling academically as it is urgent in its need for practical application. I thus present Prof. Amartya Kuma r Sen, Nobel Laureate, for the award of the degree of Doctor of Social Science, honoris causa. 55th Congregatio n 45