welfare economics

American  

noun

1. a branch of economics concerned with improving human welfare and social conditions chiefly through the optimum distribution of wealth, the relief or reduction of unemployment, etc.

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welfare economics British  

noun

1. the aspects of economic theory concerned with the welfare of society and priorities to be observed in the allocation of resources

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Example Sentences

During more than six decades of teaching and writing, Sen has transformed the study of famines and the field of welfare economics, work for which, in 1998, he received the Nobel Prize.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 6, 2019

He was responsible for the modern mathematical version of the two fundamental theorems of welfare economics.

From Nature • Mar. 28, 2017

Laureates include the former chief economist of the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Indian economist Amartya Sen, professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard, for his work on welfare economics.

From The Guardian • Oct. 11, 2010

He was attracted by the ideas of his time, from the Fabian Socialism of Bernard Shaw to the moral relativism of Bertrand Russell and the welfare economics of John Maynard Keynes.

From Time Magazine Archive

A love of dissent certainly comes naturally to Sen. The Nobel Prize was awarded to him for his contribution to welfare economics.

From Time Magazine Archive