Introduction

A major feature of Sen's theory, characterising well-being as a rich and multifaceted concept, unquestionably lies in its conforming to intuitive notions of what it means to be better off or worse off. Essentially, this account confronts anybody who is willing to assign some kind of concrete shape to functionings and capabilities with a frame of analysis involving, however, analogous issues if compared with the concepts of the living standard traditionally used in practical work. In spite of this, when it comes to working definitions and measurements, its informational richness is often regarded as a worrisome feature.

The existing applications have nevertheless proven to be rather fruitful in terms of the array of suggested techniques. As Atkinson (1999: 185) has stressed, ‘there is more than one way in which an idea of this kind [Sen's framework] can be operationally effective’. Focusing on micro applications, the literature has been basically ranging in between the use of simple descriptive statistics, multivariate methods and the ‘fuzziness’ approach. The adoption of the two latter methodologies has been repeatedly endorsed by Sen himself (1990, 1994 and 1996), emphasising their suitability for his framework. Accordingly, most applications nowadays rely on either of the two techniques.

Meanwhile, increasing attention has been devoted to Sen's approach – at least in some countries – and also by public institutions.