2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
An Application of Sen's Capability Approach to the Poverty in East and Southeast Asian Countries.
| Project/Area Number |
13630041
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
経済政策(含経済事情)
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| Research Institution | University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
IKEMOTO Yukio University of Tokyo, Institute of Oriental Culture, Professor, 東洋文化研究所, 教授 (20222911)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
SATO Hiroshi Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of Economics, Professor, 大学院・経済学研究科, 教授 (50211280)
TERASAKI Yasuhiro Science University of Tokyo, School of Management, Professor, 経営学部, 教授 (90136622)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2002
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| Keywords | Poverty / Income Distribution / East Asia / Southeast Asia / Capability Approach |
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| Research Abstract |
The main purpose of this research is to apply Amartya Sen's capability approach to the poverty and income inequality in East and Southeast Asian countries. In the 1990s the focus of economic development policies in the developing countries was shifted to the poverty alleviation policies. However, the poverty alleviation policies were not successful in reducing poverty. A reason is that these policies adopted implicitly or explicitly the income approach in which poverty is measured in terms of income level. In general, a single measure such as Income is not suitable to measure a multi-dimensional phenomenon such as poverty. Poverty should be measured by multi-dimensional indicator of well-being such as "capability" which is composed of vectors of functionings. Though the capability approach has long been expected to break through the difficulty of the income approach, it was not widely applied to the actual problems of poverty due to the difficulty to operationalize.
In this study the ca
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pability approach was applied to the case studies of poverty and income inequality in Vietnam, Laos, China and so on. The evaluation of the existing poverty alleviation policies revealed that the inefficiency of the income approach was brought about by the indirectness of income as a measure of poverty. To the contrary, the capability, which is a direct measurement of well-being of people, can be used as a direct policy target without arbitrariness, allowing for the diversity in the way of life. The difficulty of selecting functionings, which is often argued as a deficiency of the capability approach, is not so difficult when it is applied to a certain case study of a community where many uncontested functionings can be neglected.
The research results were published in journals and publications and presented at international conferences such as the conferences on the capability approach held at University of Cambridge in 2001 and 2002. The idea of this research is also reflected in the policy recommendations for the government of Laos. Practically it is also applied in the baseline survey for the people affected by an irrigation project in Vietnam. Less
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