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Is Amartya Sen a
Post-Autistic Economist? Emmanuelle Benicourt (co-founder of Austisme-Économie, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
- Paris) © Copyright 2002 Emmanuelle
Benicourt The
numerous reactions to Bernard Guerrien’s essay (“Is
There Anything Worth Keeping in Standard Micro-Economics?”, pae review n°12 and n°13) show that there
is no consensus among heterodox economists concerning what constitutes
“autistic” economics. In this article, I would like to initiate another but
parallel debate by questioning the widely held opinion that Amartya Sen has made an
important contribution to post-autistic economics. I wonder if he is really,
as Geoff Harcourt implies, “a real force for good in our discipline and [if]
the award of the Nobel Prize to him is a positive signal, to be embraced, not
belittled”. Before
examining Amartya Sen’s
theoretical system, let’s recall that he was not awarded the Nobel Prize for
his eventual “heterodox” research programme, but for his very mainstream
contributions to “standard” economics - particularly for his work on Social
Choice (Nobel Press Release, October 14, 1998). The Prize thus mainly
concerns Sen’s early work in which he tried to go
beyond Arrow’s “Impossibility Theorem” by weakening certain formal – and
secondary – conditions (see, for example, Collective
Choice and Social Welfare, 1970). The 1998 Nobel Prize, therefore, does
not reward Sen’s possible “de-autistification”
of economics. Some
people may argue that although Amartya Sen oriented his early investigations to mainstream
issues, a shift can be observed in his publications since the early 80’s.
Indeed, from 1982 on, Amartya Sen
focused his efforts on building the so called “capability” approach. For many
economists (whether orthodox or heterodox), this new system constitutes real
progress in economic theory: it “reintroduces” ethical and philosophical
considerations into economics. I will argue, however, that although Amartya Sen’s “capability”
approach treats some philosophical issues (as do all economic theories), his
underlying theoretical system remains undeniably neoclassical. Sen’s “capability” approach
“Functionings”
instead of “utilities”
The concept of capability
was introduced so as to overcome the deficiencies of what Sen
considers to be the “rawlsian” and the
“utilitarian” approaches. He defines his concept as each individual’s freedom
to achieve a particular life. As he puts it : “The
expression [capability] was picked to represent the alternative combinations
of things a person is able to do or be - the various ‘functionings’
he or she can achieve (…) Functionings represent
parts of the state of a person – in particular the various things that he or
she manages to do or be in leading a life. The capability of a person
reflects the alternative combinations of functionings
the person can achieve, and from which he or she can choose one collection.
The approach is based on a view of living as a combination of various ‘doings
and beings’, with quality of life to be assessed in terms of the capability
to achieve valuable functionings” (“Capability and
well-being”, 1993, p. 31). In his last book, Development as Freedom, Sen explains
that “a person’s ‘capability’ refers
to the alternative combinations of functionings
that are feasible for her to achieve. Capability is thus a kind of freedom:
the substantive freedom to achieve alternative functioning combinations (or,
less formally put, the freedom to achieve various lifestyles).” (Development as Freedom, 1999, p.
74-75). Just a variation of
standard microeconomics
The
theoretical approach proposed seems, at first sight, revolutionary. However,
when Sen explicitly describes his system
(particularly in Commodities and
Capabilities, 1985), it becomes
clear that it is just a variation of the mainstream approach. Instead of
reasoning in terms of an n-dimensional space composed of “commodities” (goods
or utilities), Sen proposes a space of “functionings”. Sen starts from
the standard model, and takes two steps. First, following an approach
developed by Gorman (1959) and Lancaster (1966), he considers that it is
useful to move to the space of the “characteristics” of goods, rather than
that of the goods themselves. Second, Sen endows
each individual with a set of “utilization functions” (reflecting what each
individual can do or be with the characteristics of goods), and with a set of
commodities (what he calls the ‘entitlement set’). The functionings
of each individual will then depend on the choice of a particular commodity
vector and of a utilisation function (see Commodities
and Capabilities p. 11-14, and p. 26-27). The capability of each
individual is then given by all the possible functionings
an individual can achieve. The formal presentation of Sen’s
system (by Sen himself) shows how similar it is
with the standard model and contrasts sharply with his “literary” essays
where he invokes his approach. What are Amartya Sen’s contributions to
post-autistic economics ?
I just don’t understand how
this theoretical system (which contains many inconsistencies, which I shall
not dwell upon here) can be considered as a contribution to post-autistic
economics. His empirical
investigations Some people seem to believe
that the capability approach - as opposed to the standard approach - is
particularly fruitful in empirical research. Yet, Sen
(just like other neoclassical economists) never uses his theoretical
construction when he examines concrete questions: he merely calculates
correlations between certain basic indicators (such as life expectancy,
literacy, infant mortality rates, etc…) One does not really need
his theoretical framework to carry out these investigations. And I have not
found, in any of Sen’s publications, an empirical
investigation that directly apprehends concrete economic and social issues
using the “capability” concept. Everyone knows that illiteracy, sickness, short life
expectancy, high infant mortality,
etc., should be eradicated because they impede people from leading good and
happy lives. Sen seems to believe that by giving
these evils more sophisticated names (“deprivation of basic capabilities”)
some fundamental breakthrough is made in our understanding of the causes and
remedies of these evils. At least that is the impression one gets in certain
passages of his work. For example, in a book with Jean Drèze,
it is said : “Poverty is, thus, ultimately a matter of ‘capability
deprivation’, and note must be taken of that basic connexion not just at the
conceptual level but also in economic investigations and in social or
political analyses. This broader and more foundational view of poverty has to
be kept in view while concentrating, as we often would in this monograph, on
the deprivation of such basic capabilities as freedom to lead normal spans of
life (undiminished by premature mortality), or the freedom to read or write
(without being constrained by illiteracy).”
(Drèze & Sen, India: Economic Development and Social
Opportunity, 1995, p. 11). His Introduction of Moral Philosophy into
Economic analysis Others
may argue that although Sen has a “mainstream
bias”, he nonetheless reintroduces philosophy in economic analysis. Although
this is partly true, one may question Amartya Sen’s objectives in this domain by quoting Sen himself. In
his last book, he says: In the absence of such imperfections
(including the nonmarketability of some goods and
services), classical models of general equilibrium have been used to
demonstrate the merits of the market mechanism in achieving economic
efficiency. (…) It is possible, however, to question whether the efficiency
sought should not be accounted in terms of individual freedoms, rather than
in utilities. (…) I have, in fact, demonstrated elsewhere [“Markets and
Freedoms: achievements and limitations of the market mechanism in promoting
individual freedoms”, in Oxford
Economic Papers, 45 (1993), 519-541] that in terms of some plausible
characterisations of substantive individual freedoms, an important part of
the Arrow-Debreu efficiency result readily translates
from the ‘space’ of utilities to that of individual freedoms, both in terms
of freedom to choose commodity baskets and in terms of capabilities to
function. In demonstrating the viability of this extension, similar
assumptions are employed as are needed for the original Arrow Debreu results (such as the absence of non
marketability). With these assumptions, it turns out that for a cogent
characterisation of individual freedoms, a competitive market equilibrium
guarantees that no one’s freedom can be increased any further while
maintaining the freedom of everyone else. (…) The basic result about market
efficiency can, in this sense, be extended to the perspective of substantive
freedoms. (Development as Freedom,
1999, p. 117-119). This
excerpt clearly shows two things. First, it indicates that Sen (like most neoclassical theorists) confuses the
highly centralized “general equilibrium model” with the completely
decentralized “market mechanism”.
Second, it shows that Sen indeed
“introduces” some philosophical concepts into standard economics, but that he
does not, however, depart from the mainstream approach. One may thus ask if
he has enriched economics or if he has impoverished moral philosophy. Sen and Mainstream Economics Finally, I would like to highlight an
important aspect of Sen’s vision: his faith in the
future of standard economic analysis and his optimism concerning the
direction in which it is being “enriched”, “broadened”, etc., making it more
and more capable (if one believes Sen) of understanding
(and proposing solutions for) economic and social problems. For example, in Development as Freedom, he
affirms: The modelling of the market economy in the
recent development literature has substantially broadened the rather limited
assumptions made in the Arrow-Debreu formulation.
It has particularly explored the importance of the economies of large scale,
the role of knowledge, learning from experience, prevalence of monopolistic
competition, the difficulties of coordination between different economic
agents and the demands of long-run growth as opposed to static efficiency. On
different aspect of these changes see Avinash Dixit and Joseph Stiglitz (…), Krugman (…) Romer (…) Lucas
(…). These developments have very substantially enriched the understanding of
the process of development and in particular the role and functioning of the
market economy in that process. They have also clarified the insights of
earlier economists on development. (Development
as Freedom, 1999, note 12, p. 321). Similarly, in a book that on India’s
economic development, he declares : “Recent work on economic growth has also
brought out sharply the role of labour and the so-called ‘human capital’. The
economic roles of school education, learning by doing, technical progress,
and even economies of large scale can all be seen as contributions – in
different ways – to the centrality of human agency in generating economic
expansion. In terms of economic theory, this shift in emphasis has provided
one way of filling the large ‘residual’ that was identified in the basic
neo-classical model of Solow (1956), and recent
growth theory has done much to bring out the function of direct human agency
in economic growth, over and above the contribution made through the
accumulation of physical capital” (Dreze & Sen, India, economic development and social
opportunity, p. 37). Furthermore, the note relative to this
quotation refers directly to very orthodox economists: “There is a vast literature in this field,
beginning by Solow’s own works that followed his
1956 model. For aspects of the recent revival of the subject, involving ‘new’
growth theory as well as further exploration of older neo-classical models
see Romer (…), Krugman
(…), Barro (…); Mankiw, Romer and Weil (…), Lucas (…)” (Dreze
& Sen, India,
economic development and social opportunity, 1995, note 16, p. 37). These abstracts show clearly that Amartya Sen is not an opponent
of the mainstream approach, and that, on the contrary, he considers these
theories as constituting great progress in the understanding of concrete
economic and social issues. In fact, Sen himself
declared openly last year, in a conference organised by the OFCE (Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques) : “I am a mainstream economist” (Conference:
“Economic development and freedom", Paris, May 29, 2001) The question thus remains open to debate:
is Amartya Sen
post-autistic ? I believe he isn’t, but I am eager to know why heterodox
economists constantly consider his theoretical approach as a real force
for reform in economics. References: __________________________ SUGGESTED CITATION: Emmanuelle Benicourt, “Is Amartya Sen a Post-Autistic Economist?”, post-autistic economics review,
issue no. 15, September 4, 2002, article 4. http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue15/Benicourt15.htm |