Sen And Development

C hapter 1

THE CONCEPT

OF DEVELOPMENT

A M A R T Y A SEN*

H arvard University

C ontents

1. The background
2. Production, growth, and development
3. Characteristics, functionings, and living
4. Freedom and capability
5. Weights and rankings
6. Values, instruments, and objects
7. Conclusion
References

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12
15
16
18
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23
24

* For helpful discussions andcomments, I am most grateful to Hollis Chenery, T.N. Srinivasan and
Paul Streeten.

H andbook of Development Economics, Volume L Edited by H. Chenery and T.N. Srinivasan
© Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1988

10

A , Sen

1. The background
" The French grow too fast", wrote Sir William Petty in 1676. Whether or not this
was in fact the first recorded expression of what is clearly atraditional English
obsession, it was certainly a part of one of the earliest discussions of development
economics. Petty was concerned not merely with the growth of numbers and of
incomes, but he also took a broad view of development problems, including
concern with the exact content of the standard of living. Part of his statistical
analysis was meant "to show" that "the King's subjects are notin so bad a
condition as discontented Men would make them". While Petty had estimated
national income by using both the "income method" and the "expenditure
method", he had also gone on to judge the conditions of people in a broad
enough way to include "the Common Safety" and "each Man's particular
Happiness"3
Petty is regarded, with justice, as one of the founders of modern economics,
andspecifically a pioneer of quantitative economics. 2 He was certainly also a
founder of development economics. Indeed, in the early contributions to economics, development economics can hardly be separated out from the rest of
economics, since so much of economics was, in fact, concerned with problems of
economic development. This applies not only to Petty's writings, but also to those
of theother pioneers of modern economics, including Gregory King, Francois
Quesnay, Antoine Lavoisier, Joseph Louis Lagrange, and even Adam Smith. A n
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was, in fact, also an
inquiry into the basic issues of development economics.
The fact that in the early writings in economics there was this noticeable
congruence of development economics andeconomics in general is a matter of
some interest, especially in the context of investigating the nature of "the concept
of development". Interest in development problems has, traditionally, provided
one of the deepest motivations f or the pursuit of economics in general, and this
broad basis of development economics has to be borne in mind when investigat-

: Political A rithmetick, i nwhich these passages occur, was written by Petty around 1676 but it was
published posthumously in 1691. The text could be found in Hull (1899, vol. I). The passages referred
to can be found on pages 241-242, 311.
2 It may be remembered that it was Petty, the anatomist and musicologist, turned economist, who
had insisted at the Royal Society that in discussions in the society, "no word nlight beused but what
marks either number, weight, or measure" [Hull (1899, vol. I, p. lxiv)]. Those who complain about the
"recent craze" for mathematical economics might have to put up with the fact that the recent times
began a long time ago.

Ch. 1: The Concept of Development

11

i ng the details of the concept of development. Having started off, tightly, with an
ell, development economicscan scarcely settle for an inch.
I t is not hard to see why the concept of development is so essential to
e conomics in general. Economic problems do, of course, involve logistic issues,
a nd a lot of it is undoubtedly "engineering" of one kind or another. On the other
h and, the success of all this has to be judged ultimately in terms of what it does
t o the lives of human beings. The...