Exchange Entitlement Mapping

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An entitlement approach called “exchange entitlement mapping,” or E-mapping, is developed throughout this chapter and chapter 4 to understand how economic events, such as changes in exchange rate, interest rate, or inflation, affect individual well-being. With his work on poverty and famines, Sen provides a basis for the measurement of exchange entitlement sets faced by an individual in the context of market interactions. E-mapping, in the sense developed by Sen (1981), represents the set of consumption bundles that the individual faces, any of which can be chosen, given his or her endowments. Sen used E-mapping to explain famines, which are due to entitlement failures to food supply, instead of the traditional explanation of a shortage in food supply alone. However, the theoretical framework presented here proposes a dynamic approach to E-mapping augmented with capabilities, from achieved functionings at time t0 to potential functionings at time t according to the individual’s social and economic entitlements. This framework helps to demonstrate that the functionings of individuals become the social entitlements of others, thus leading to the interdependence of functionings between individuals.