From 'Hume's Law' to Problem- and Policy-Analysis for Human Development. Sen after Dewey, Myrdal, Streeten, Stretton and Haq

Des Gasper

Review of Political Economy, 2008, vol. 20, issue 2, 233-256

Abstract: Much of Amartya Sen's work has been policy-related, but his methodology of policy analysis has not been explained in detail. Action-related social science involves value-imbued procedures that guide choices. This theme was explored by Streeten and Stretton, and earlier by Dewey and Myrdal. Assisted by Jean Dreze, Sen has evolved a form of policy analysis guided by humanist values rather than those of mainstream economics. Features of this methodology include the following: (1) a wider range of values employed in valuation, with central attention on: 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) a focus on human realities, not an arbitrary slice of reality selected according to commercial significance and convenience for measurement; (5) using a wider range of values to guide other decisions in analysis; thus, there is a focus on the socio-economic significance of the result; and (6) a matching focus on a wide range of potential policy means. This paper characterizes Sen's policy analysis methodology, its roots in earlier work, and its relations to the UNDP Human Development approach and kindred approaches.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09538250701819701 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:20:y:2008:i:2:p:233-256

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRPE20

DOI: 10.1080/09538250701819701

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Political Economy is currently edited by Steve Pressman and Louis-Philippe Rochon

More articles in Review of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().