The Political Economy of Hunger: Selected Essays (WIDER Studies in Development Economics)

Hailed on its initial publication as a work with immediate implications for countless lives, Dreze & Sen's The Political Economy of Hunger is the classic analysis of an extraordinary paradox: in a world of food surpluses and diseases of overeating, hunger kills millions more people each year than wars or political repression. Now this abridged version puts the most essential and influential essays from the three-volume work within the reach of concerned citizens who want to understand the real causes of hunger and deprivation. Famines, the contributors believe, are caused not just by food shortages, but by social and economic factors, and a whole host of factors may intervene between a natural disaster and the ensuing famine. The most common instinctive reaction to famines-increasing the amount of food per capita-may only be effective in the very short term, and the real solution may turn out to be counter-intuitive. Ranging from Africa to South Asia to China and written by an international array of authorities, the essays included in this abridgement give the best available analysis of the causes of worldwide hunger, and the best hope for effective aid policies in the future.