Resumen en español

The author, Amartya Sen, presents a landmark work that places individual freedom at the center of a comperhensive analysis of today - s global economy. The role of different institutions - including the market, the state, the media, opposition groups, and non-government organizations - are seen within a broad, integrated framework. The focus of this work is on freedom both as the basic end and as the most effective means of sustaining econmic life and countering poverty and insecurity in the contemporary world. This is a paradigm-altering foundation for understanding the demands of economic development - for both rich and poor - in the twenty-first century.