EXACTLY 200 years after Thomas Malthus predicted starvation caused by overpopulation and scarce food, Amartya Sen has won a Nobel prize for economics partly for proving that Malthus was wrong. The Indian economist, who this year became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was officially awarded the prize for his work on welfare economics. Called “the conscience of the profession” by another Nobel laureate, Robert Solow, Mr Sen has merged philosophy with economics.

在馬爾薩斯預(yù)測(cè)了由過(guò)剩人口和稀缺食物引發(fā)饑荒整整200年后，阿馬蒂亞·森（Amartya Sen）因?yàn)椴糠值刈C明馬爾薩斯是錯(cuò)誤的而獲得了諾貝爾經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)獎(jiǎng)。這位今年成為劍橋三一學(xué)院院長(zhǎng)的印度經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家已經(jīng)因?yàn)閷?duì)福利經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)的研究而被正式授予了這個(gè)獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)。被另一位諾獎(jiǎng)得主羅伯特·索洛（Robert Solow）稱為“學(xué)界良心”的森融合了經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)和哲學(xué)。

In his 1981 book “Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation”, Mr Sen challenged the prevailing wisdom that declining food supply is the most important cause of famine. Why, Mr Sen asked, has famine often occurred in countries where the supply of food per head is no lower than in previous years? He concluded that there are social and economic factors at work that limit the economic opportunities of certain groups and so cause starvation.

在他1981年的著作《貧困與饑荒：論權(quán)利與剝奪》（Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation）中，森挑戰(zhàn)了日趨減少的食物供應(yīng)是饑荒的最重要原因的主流觀念。森問(wèn)道：為什么饑荒經(jīng)常發(fā)生在人均食物供應(yīng)不再低于之前年份的國(guó)家？他的結(jié)論是：這是因?yàn)榇嬖谥拗铺囟ㄈ巳簷C(jī)會(huì)的社會(huì)和經(jīng)濟(jì)因素在起作用，因而才引起饑荒。

In addition to his work in development economics, Mr Sen earned a reputation in the 1970s for significantly advancing the field of social-choice theory. Building on work done previously by another economist, Kenneth Arrow (who won the Nobel Prize in 1972), Mr Sen argued that inequality ought to be a fundamental consideration in collective action. To this end, he developed several indices with which to measure the welfare of individuals in society. His “poverty index” took into account not only the proportion of a society living below the poverty line, but also the degree of poverty among the most destitute. Mr Sen's work has been used by other economists not only to compare the welfare of individuals across society, but also of countries around the world.

除了發(fā)展經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)方面的研究，森還因?yàn)轱@著推進(jìn)社會(huì)選擇理論而在70年代名聲大振?；诹硪晃唤?jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家（1972年獲得諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)的）肯尼斯·阿羅（Kenneth Arrow ）之前的研究，森指出，不平等應(yīng)當(dāng)成為集體行動(dòng)中的一個(gè)根本關(guān)切。為此，他提出了多個(gè)用以衡量個(gè)人在社會(huì)中的福利的指數(shù)。他的“貧困指數(shù)”不僅加入了生活在貧困線下的社會(huì)比例，還將最貧困人群的貧困程度納入其中。森的研究不僅一直被其他經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家用來(lái)比較跨社會(huì)的個(gè)人福利，而且還被用來(lái)比較世界各國(guó)的個(gè)人福利。

The choice of Mr Sen is ironic. Last year's laureates, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, won their prize for work on the pricing of risk. As partners in Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund that nearly collapsed, their work has recently made a lot of rich people poorer—themselves included. Mr Sen's work, in contrast, was aimed at making the poor better off. And Mr Sen himself is now $1m the richer.

森的選擇具有諷刺意味。去年的得主——斯科爾斯和默頓——曾因?yàn)樗麄優(yōu)轱L(fēng)險(xiǎn)定價(jià)的研究而獲獎(jiǎng)。作為即將崩塌的對(duì)沖基金——長(zhǎng)期資本管理公司的合伙人，他們的研究近來(lái)讓包括他們自己的許多富人一貧如洗。相比之下，森的研究的目的是讓窮人過(guò)上好日子，而且他自己的身價(jià)現(xiàn)在也漲了100萬(wàn)美元.