IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tky/fseres/2004cf257.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Development as Freedom

Author

Listed:
  • Haider Ali Khan

    (GSIS, University of Denver)

Abstract

This chapter offers a historical and analytical introduction to the school of thought that views 'development as freedom'. Since it is impossible to do justice to the depth and complexity of this 'new' approach to development in just one short chapter, I explore a few significant dimensions of the concept beginning with Amartya Sen's pioneering contributions. I also look at clarifications by Nussbaum and others who offer a list of important functionings that can be included in the capabilities set. The subsequent part builds on this by exploring the transition from a utilitarian welfare economics to a fully social capabilities based ethics for development with justice. The present chapter proceeds in the direction of concretizing the idea of 'development as freedom' by discussing the role of a network of social, economic and political institutions in creating social capabilities. This allows us to develop the argument that freedom is to be viewed dynamically as the development of appropriate social capabilities embedded in a specific network of social, economic and political institutions. The following section then presents an example of a concrete area of application--- namely, the problem of developing women's capabilities as an important aspect of global justice--- in order to illustrate the practical relevance of the capabilities approach. The final, concluding section reflects on the future of the social capabilities approach as an evaluative framework for development theory and policy. It turns out that in addition to the usual list of capabilities, and policies driven by them in the field of development, a deep democratic constitution backed up by ongoing democratizing social and political movement is an integral part of the historical project of enhancing social capabilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Haider Ali Khan, 2004. "Development as Freedom," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-257, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2004cf257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2004/2004cf257.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lopez, Ramon & Thomas, Vinod & Yan Wang, 1998. "Addressing the education puzzle : the distribution of education and economic reform," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2031, The World Bank.
    2. Elwan, Ann, 1999. "Poverty and disability : a survey of the literature," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 21315, The World Bank.
    3. Kanbur, Ravi, 2000. "Income distribution and development," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 791-841, Elsevier.
    4. Ravi Kanbur, S. M., 1987. "Structural adjustment, macroeconomic adjustment and poverty: A methodology for analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 15(12), pages 1515-1526, December.
    5. Heywood Fleisig, 1995. "The Right to Borrow : Legal and Regulatory Barriers that Limit Access to Credit by Small Farms and Businesses," World Bank Publications - Reports 11673, The World Bank Group.
    6. Mikael Lindahl & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1101-1136, December.
    7. James R. Tybout, 2000. "Manufacturing Firms in Developing Countries: How Well Do They Do, and Why?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 11-44, March.
    8. Haddad, Lawrence & Kanbur, Ravi, 1990. "How Serious Is the Neglect of Intra-Household Inequality?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(402), pages 866-881, September.
    9. Khan, Qaiser M., 1985. "A model of endowment-constrained demand for food in an agricultural economy with empirical applications to Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(9), pages 1055-1065, September.
    10. Dasgupta, Partha, 1986. "Positive Freedom, Markets and the Welfare State," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 2(2), pages 25-36, Summer.
    11. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    12. Behrman, Jere R, 1988. "Intrahousehold Allocation of Nutrients in Rural India: Are Boys Favored? Do Parents Exhibit Inequality Aversion?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 32-54, March.
    13. Thorbecke, Erik & Jung, Hong-Sang, 1996. "A multiplier decomposition method to analyze poverty alleviation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 279-300, March.
    14. Kalai, Ehud & Smorodinsky, Meir, 1975. "Other Solutions to Nash's Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(3), pages 513-518, May.
    15. Desai, Meghnad & Shah, Anup, 1988. "An Econometric Approach to the Measurement of Poverty," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(3), pages 505-522, September.
    16. Kanbur, S M, 1979. "Of Risk Taking and the Personal Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 769-797, August.
    17. Sugden, Robert, 1993. "Welfare, Resources, and Capabilities: A Review [Inequality Reexamined]," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1947-1962, December.
    18. Lutz Hendricks, 2002. "How Important Is Human Capital for Development? Evidence from Immigrant Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 198-219, March.
    19. Marguerite S. Robinson, 2001. "The Microfinance Revolution," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28956.
    20. Franklin M. Fisher, 1987. "Household Equivalence Scales and Interpersonal Comparisons," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(3), pages 519-524.
    21. Stefano Scarpetta & Philip Hemmings & Thierry Tressel & Jaejoon Woo, 2002. "The Role of Policy and Institutions for Productivity and Firm Dynamics: Evidence from Micro and Industry Data," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 329, OECD Publishing.
    22. François Bourguignon, 1990. "Growth and Inequality in the Dual Model of Development: The Role of Demand Factors," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(2), pages 215-228.
    23. A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Income Distribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    24. Nugent, Jeffrey B & Yhee, Seung-Jae, 2002. "Small and Medium Enterprises in Korea: Achievements, Constraints and Policy Issues," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1-3), pages 85-119, Feb.- May.
    25. Pritchett, Lant, 1996. "Where has all the education gone?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1581, The World Bank.
    26. Srinivasan, T N, 1994. "Human Development: A New Paradigm or Reinvention of the Wheel?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 238-243, May.
    27. Thorbecke, Erik & Morrisson, Christian, 1989. "Institutions, policies and agricultural performance: A comparative analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(9), pages 1485-1498, September.
    28. Ichino, Andrea & Ichino, Pietro, 1997. "Culture, Discrimination and Individual Productivity: Regional Evidence from Personnel Data in a Large Italian Firm," CEPR Discussion Papers 1709, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    29. Kornai, Janos, 1988. "Individual freedom and reform of the socialist economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 233-267, March.
    30. Levine,David P., 1995. "Wealth and Freedom," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521447911, November.
    31. Szpiro, George G., 1987. "Hirschman versus Herfindahl: Some topological properties for the use of concentration indexes," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 299-302, December.
    32. Maasoumi, Esfandiar, 1986. "The Measurement and Decomposition of Multi-dimensional Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(4), pages 991-997, July.
    33. Blakorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1980. "Ethical Indices for the Measurement of Poverty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 1053-1060, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya & Tamazian, Artur, 2008. "Impact Of Institutional Quality On Human Rights Abuses In Transition Economies," MPRA Paper 10137, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati & Artur Tamazian, 2008. "Impact Of Institutional Quality On Human Rights Abuses In Transition Economies," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp928, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Haider A. Khan, 2007. "Women's Rights as Human Rights: A Political and Social Economy Approach within a Deep Democratic Framework," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-475, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    2. Andrea Brandolini, 2008. "On applying synthetic indices of multidimensional well-being: health and income inequalities in selected EU countries," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 668, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Andrea Brandolini, 2007. "On Synthetic Indices Of Multidimensional Well-Being: Health And Income Inequalities In France, Germany, Italy And The United Kingdom," CHILD Working Papers wp07_07, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    4. James E. Foster & Joel Greer & Erik Thorbecke, 2010. "The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) Poverty Measures: Twenty-Five Years Later," Working Papers 2010-14, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    5. Dipesh Gangopadhyay & Robert B. Nielsen & Velma Zahirovic-Herbert, 2021. "Methodology and Axiomatic Characterization of a Multidimensional and Fuzzy Measure of Deprivation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 1-37, January.
    6. James Foster & Joel Greer & Erik Thorbecke, 2010. "The Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures: 25 years later," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(4), pages 491-524, December.
    7. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    8. Christophe Muller & Asha Kannan & Roland Alcindor, 2016. "Multidimensional Poverty in Seychelles," Working Papers halshs-01264444, HAL.
    9. Dieter Pennerstorfer & Nora Schindler & Christoph Weiss & Biliana Yontcheva, 2020. "Income Inequality and Product Variety: Empirical Evidence," Economics working papers 2020-17, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    10. Jens Leth Hougaard & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2013. "On the Measurement of the (Multidimensional) Inequality of Health Distributions," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 111-129, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Francesco Andreoli & Claudio Zoli, 2020. "From unidimensional to multidimensional inequality: a review," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 78(1), pages 5-42, April.
    12. Suri, Tavneet & Boozer, Michael A. & Ranis, Gustav & Stewart, Frances, 2011. "Paths to Success: The Relationship Between Human Development and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 506-522, April.
    13. Rossi,Federico, 2018. "Human Capital and Macro-Economic Development : A Review of the Evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8650, The World Bank.
    14. Rolf Aaberge & Andrea Brandolini, 2014. "Multidimensional poverty and inequality," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 976, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Bourguignon, François, 1993. "Individus, familles et bien-être social," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 69(4), pages 243-258, décembre.
    16. Klasen, Stephan & Günther, Isabel, 2007. "Measuring Chronic Non-Income Poverty," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 10, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    17. Haider A. Khan, 2007. "Social Accounting Matrices(SAMs) and CGE Modeling:Using Macroeconomic Computable General Equilibrium Models for Assessing Poverty Impact of Structural Adjustment Policies," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-463, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    18. Luchters, Guido & Menkhoff, Lukas, 1996. "Human development as statistical artifact," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(8), pages 1385-1392, August.
    19. Haider A. Khan, 2007. "Trade Liberalization and Poverty Reduction in General Equilibrium: The Role of Labor Market Structure," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-462, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    20. Sourushe Zandvakili, 2008. "Advances in Inequality Measurement and Usefulness of Statistical Inference," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 135-145, January.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2004cf257. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CIRJE administrative office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ritokjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.