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Few scholars have left more of a mark on the field of development economics
than Amartya Sen.
The winner of the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, Mr. Sen has
changed the way economists think about such issues as collective decisionmaking,
welfare economics and measuring poverty. He has pioneered the use of
economic tools to highlight gender inequality, and he helped the United Nations
devise its Human Development Index -- today the most widely used measure of
how well nations meet basic social needs.