ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: The route which takes to the theory of Capabilities and Functionings. Is the capability approach a common denominator of the two parallel historical paths?
Author: Violante Gianna Rita
In retracing the historical background of Sen's Capability Approach I am proposing an analytical path which in the 20th century led to the evolution of the neoclassical mainstream and, more precisely, to a change in the notion of welfare. It is assumed that in the attempt to provide plausible answers, the neoclassical school engaged in a gradual and chronological revision of some aspects of its orthodoxy. As a result, three “evolutionary stages” may be identified. From this steps we can explain how Amartya Sen proposes a new welfare theory which restores the function of ethics within economics, arriving at a personal well-being based on satisfaction indicators and pursued with instruments of limited rationality. The economic agent, as described by Sen, is provided with incomplete information, which is gathered from the subjective (the context or background) and the perceived (reference frames to filter and process information) reality, and aims at multidimensional objectives (which may form the basis for cyclic preferences): these assertions are the building blocks of Sen's theory envisaging a well-being of capabilities and functionings.
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