Is the Capability approach a useful tool for decision aiding in public policy making?

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of Sen's capability approach as a practical tool for decision aiding in public policy by developing an empirical model that captures individual welfare and collective threats.

Contribution

It introduces a novel empirical framework for the capability approach, bridging the gap between theory and practical decision-making in public policy.

Findings

Proposes a model representing individual welfare using CA

Highlights the utility of CA in decision aiding

Addresses the impact of collective threats on welfare

Abstract

This paper aims at proposing a model representing individuals' welfare using Sen's capability approach (CA). It is the first step of an attempt to measure the negative impact caused by the damage at a Common on a given population's welfare, and widely speaking, a first step into modelling collective threat. The CA is a multidimensional representation of persons' well-beings which account for human diversity. It has received substantial attention from scholars from different disciplines such as philosophy, economics and social scientist. Nevertheless, there is no empirical work that really fits the theoretical framework. Our goal is to show that the capability approach can be very useful for decision aiding, especially if we fill the gap between the theory and the empirical work; thus we will propose a framework that is both usable and a close representation of what capability is.