Sen started his career teaching at many of the universities in the UK, including those at
University of Sussex,
Oxford University,
University of Cambridge, and the
University of Essex, before returning to New Delhi to teach at the
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). In 1985, he moved to the university's Center for Economic Studies and Planning. Sen's work computed MSP based on not only direct costs of producing the grains, but also included indirect costs like unpaid family labor,
opportunity costs from rent and interest lost on owned land, as well as capital asset costs. This recommendation was captured in the eventual 'Swaminathan Formula' that was adopted to compute the MSP costs which pegged MSP at 50% higher than direct production costs. He was also a member of the State Planning Boards of West Bengal and Tripura, PM's Taskforce on Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, and the Expert Committee on Rural Credit. As an advocate of the universal PDS system, Sen maintained that the cost of food subsidies was overstated and that a country like India could afford both a universal PDS system providing food grains at an affordable rate to its population, while also providing a minimum support price to its farmers. Sen received the
Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, for public service in 2010. ==Personal life==