PROFESSOR AMARTYA SEN AND THE 1974 BANGLADESH FAMINE
Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation
Amartya Sen
Abstract
The main focus of this book is on the causation of starvation in general and of famines in particular. The traditional analysis of famines concentrates on food supply. This is shown to be fundamentally defective—it is theoretically unsound, empirically inept, and dangerously misleading for policy. The author develops an alternative method of analysis—the 'entitlement approach', which concentrates on ownership and exchange. Aside from developing the underlying theory, the approach is used in a number of case studies of recent famines, including the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, the Ethiopian famine.... ...http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198284632.001.0001/acprof-9780198284635
Famine in Bangladesh....
A case study of the 1974 famine in Bangladesh, which was associated with the floods of that year, and had an official mortality of 26,000. The causation of the famine is analysed in terms of food availability decline (FAD), and this approach is shown to offer very little by way of explanation of the famine, although the general food shortage resulting from low food imports and government food stocks is identified as a constraint in government relief operations. An analysis of the occupational status and the intensity of destitution show that the largest group were labourers. The exchange entitlement of the labourers is analysed in detail, and it is concluded that this approach gives a much better understanding of the famine.....
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198284632.001.0001/acprof-9780198284635-chapter-9
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