Hunger and public action. Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen Clarendon, Oxford, 1989,373 pp.
| Published date | 01 May 1992 |
| Author | Michael Hubbard |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230120209 |
| Date | 01 May 1992 |
2
16
Book
reviews
The final substantive section is Section IV, which has three papers on various aspects
of
the financing of local economic development. Easily the most disappointing
of
these is the
very thin paper on venture capital, which loses an opportunity to assess the US experiences
in using such arrangements as a tool of local economic development. Easily the most interesting
is a substantial paper by Robert Gaston on informal entrepreneurial finance and the role
of
so-called investment ‘Angels’ (an analogy with the rich individuals who finance theatrical
productions in the UK). The ‘Angel’ industry is apparently an important source of early-stage
financing for new industrial ideas in the US, and one which avoids many of the criticisms
now increasingly levelled at conventional venture capital. To the best
of
your reviewer’s know-
ledge, there is no comparable documentation about the ‘Angels’ in the UK to that provided
by Gaston. He has assembled a fascinating set of facts about the ‘Angels’, the scope
of
their
activities, their motivations and their incidence within the US population. We learn, for exam-
ple, that there are about
4
‘Angels’ per
lo00
of the adult population. A similar study for
the UK would be of considerable interest to thousands
of
prospective new businesses, as
well as practitioners in the local economic development business.
The final section provides the final example of the erroneous labelling which seems to
characterize this volume. The one paper in the section labelled ‘Putting It All Together’
is
nothing
of
the sort. It is merely one morecase study-albeit the interesting one of the Mahoning
Valley already referred to-of the way in which public and private organizations can work
together to design and promote important local development projects.
Overall, this is a valuable collection of materials on
a
topic
of
considerable and growing
importance in the
UK
as
well as the US. The three editors are to be congratulated for assembling
the material but not, it would appear, for any particularly substantial effort in providing
editorial direction and linkage
to
ensure that the
18
separate building blocks contribute effec-
tively to one integrated story.
ALAN
B.
ROE
Warwick Research Institute
HUNGER
AND PUBLIC ACTION
Jean
Dreze
and
Amartya
Sen
Clarendon, Oxford,
1989,373
pp.
This book is
a
comprehensive review
of
its field, lucid and well-structured, with a remarkable
coverage
of
the literature. It is an essential reference work for those concerned with research
and policy on reducing hunger and poverty. The book has three substantive parts, the fourth
and last being a summary.
Part I sets out the concepts used. Broadly there are three clusters of concepts, surrounding
‘entitlements’, ‘capability’ and ‘public action’, respectively. At the risk of oversimplification,
‘entitlements’ are the means or inputs people have to avoid hunger and poverty, i.e. their
command over commodities, via their income or their social position within the household
or community; their ‘capabilities’ (in size, health, nutritional status, skills, etc.) are the outputs,
reflecting their success or failure in averting hunger and poverty; ‘public action’ is the means
used by the state, politicians, community and the media, protesting the lack of or risks to
the ‘capability’ of the vulnerable, and seeking to protect
or
promote their ‘entitlements’ by
intervening in markets for essential commodities and services.
Around the axis formed by these three concepts turn the three principal arguments
of
the book, presented in Parts I1 and 111. They are strengthened by well-documented case studies
of successful famine prevention in Maharashtra (India), Cape Verde, Kenya, Zimbabwe and
Botswana, and successful reduction of chronic hunger and poverty in Sri Lanka, Chile and
Costa Rica. The three main arguments are as follows.
First,
public action is essential for the reduction of poverty and hunger,
whether it is a matter
of averting famine or dealing with chronic poverty, whether the country is, in aggregate,
wealthy or poor.
1,
In the case
of
famine prevention: where many people’s entitlements are low and unstable,
a system of emergency public assistance is essential to protect their entitlement-most
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