Economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has won the newly instituted Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize.
“In the spirit of John Maynard Keynes’ work, life and legacy, this new global prize recognises Professor Sen’s outstanding contribution to society,” a release accessed here said on Monday.
Regarded as one of the foremost thinkers in the field of famine, poverty, social choice and welfare economics, Professor Sen's ground-breaking work has been academically influential and has had a profound impact on the formation of development policy worldwide.
Currently a Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, he has been a Professor at the London School of Economics and until 2004 was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Professor Sen reacted thus: “I feel deeply honoured by the news of this award. The world in which we live today has been made much more secure by the economic wisdom that Keynes brought to us during the dark days of the Great Depression. When that wisdom is partly or wholly ignored in the making of economic policy, large numbers of people are made to suffer unnecessarily. I am afraid we have seen several depressing examples of that in the recent years, especially in Europe, with a huge human toll. Keynes was a great pathfinder, and it would have distressed — if not surprised — him to see how well-identified paths can be comprehensively neglected by policymaking that draws more on ideology than on well-reflected reasoning.”
The prize was announced by Dame Liz Forgan at the Royal Academy on Monday night. The chair of the advisory panel, she commented: “The aim of this prize is to honour individuals from around the world who continue to embody Keynes’ extraordinary attributes. The remarkable Amartya Sen couldn’t be a more worthy winner in this inaugural year. Philosopher, economist, teacher, moralist, his tireless commitment to the cause of ending inequality and deprivation by bringing a penetrating intelligence to bear on their causes is truly exceptional. On behalf of my fellow judges I would like to congratulate Professor Sen on his outstanding achievements.”
Professor Sen will receive £7,500 to commission a work of art and will give the annual Charleston-EFG Keynes Lecture at the Charleston Festival in the U.K. This year’s lecture, scheduled for May 23, will be on ‘The Economic Consequences of Austerity’.
Charleston, in Sussex, used to be the home and country meeting place for the writers, painters and intellectuals of the Bloomsbury group.
