Development As Freedom.

Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in economics, has produced a work of eminent value. He focuses on the tendency of Western economics to emphasize gross national product or aggregate wealth as indicators of national well-being. A more sentient measure of the usefulness and value of development is whether it expands "real freedoms that people enjoy." Sen examines other determinants of a nation's wealth, such as social and economic arrangements, political and civil rights, industrialization and technological progress and modernization, factors that can substantially contribute to expanding human freedom. "The perspective that Mr. Sen describes and advocates has great attractions. Chief among them is that, by cutting through the sterile debate for or against the market, it makes it easier to ask sharper questions about public policy" (The Economist).