Question

How does A.K. Sen's Exchange Entitlement Hypothesis differ from FAD as an explanation of famines?

Answer 1

There is a difference between these FAD hypothesis and entitlement hypothesis. The distinction between these two is the one between specific and the general. Sen vehemently denied the FAD approach and preferred the entitlement approach mainly because of two reasons as

follows:

1. Plurality of Causes:

There are many causes of famines. It can also occur in the absence of decline in food availability. The entitlement approach is in a position to identify these causes, which the FAD approach will have no clue about it.

2. Asymmetry of Impact:

Whatever may be the cause of famine, its degree of impact felt on different sections of society are different. Thus, approach does not supply any information in this regard whereas entitlement approach explains such asymmetries by looking separately at the entitlement sets of different socio-economic groups. Sen also through his four case studies in poverty and famines attempted to show that FAD hypothesis did not hold.

Sen was misunderstood because his commentators felt that he was proposing entitlement hypothesis as an alternative to FAD hypothesis. This confusion was created because many of the commentators could not make a distinction between approach and hypothesis. All these led to a good deal of misplaced criticism of the entitlement approach. A related confusion that also existed is evident from the following statement of Baulch. According to him, “Sen’s immediate aim throughout Poverty and Famines is to discredit the traditional supply-side views of famines, which he labels the Food Availability Decline (or FAD) approach….” (Baulch 1987, p.15). But if we examine carefully the entitlement approach, it reveals that it is not all against the supply side. Rather this approach insists that the supply-side effects ought to be analysed not in terms of aggregate food availability but in terms of entitlement sets of different socio-economic groups. While doing so it does not restrict the supply-demand considerations to food market alone but to all related markets calling for the use of the general equilibrium method .