Hirofumi Uzawa's theoretical framework addresses three major problems concerning global warming and other environmental hazards. First, it considers all phenomena involved with global environmental issues that exhibit externalities of one kind or another. Secondly, it covers global environmental issues involving international and intergenerational equity and justice. Lastly, it deals with global environmental issues concerning the management of the atmosphere, the oceans, water, soil, and other natural resources having to be decided by a consensus of affected countries.

The papers collected here deal with various topics in economic theory, ranging from preference and consumption, duality and production, equilibrium, capital, and growth, to the theory of social overhead capital. They all have a common theme: to try to formulate the working of economic forces in a capitalist economy in terms of mathematical models and to explore their static, dynamic, and welfare implications. Most of the papers were originally published during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Social common capital provides members of society with those services and institutional arrangements that are crucial in maintaining human and cultural life. The term social common capital is comprised of three categories: natural capital, social infrastructure, and institutional capital. Natural capital consists of all natural environment and natural resources including the earth s atmosphere. Social infrastructure consists of roads, bridges, public transportation systems, electricity, and other public utilities. Institutional capital includes hospitals, educational institutions, judicial and police systems, public administrative services, financial and monetary institutions, and cultural capital. This book attempts to modify and extend the theoretical premises of orthodox economic theory to make them broad enough to analyze the economic implications of social common capital. It further aims to find the institutional arrangements and policy measures that will bring about the optimal state of affairs in which the natural and institutional components are blended together harmoniously to realize the sustainable state as suggested by John Stuart Mill."

In this book, Professor Uzawa modifies and extends the theoretical premises of orthodox economic theory to those broad enough to be capable of analyzing the phenomena related to environmental disequilibrium, particularly global warming, and of finding institutional arrangements and policy measures that may bring about a more optimal state where natural and institutional components are harmoniously blended. He constructs a theoretical framework in which three major problems concerning global environmental issues may effectively be addressed. First, all phenomena involved with global environmental issues exhibit externalities of one kind or another. Secondly, global environmental issues involve international and intergenerational equity and justice. Thirdly, global environmental issues concern the management of the atmosphere, the oceans, water, soil, and other natural resources that have to be decided by a consensus of all affected countries.

Social common capital provides members of society with those services and institutional arrangements that are crucial in maintaining human and cultural life. The term "social common capital" is comprised of three categories: natural capital, social infrastructure, and institutional capital. Natural capital consists of all natural environment and natural resources including the earth's atmosphere. Social infrastructure consists of roads, bridges, public transportation systems, electricity, and other public utilities. Institutional capital includes hospitals, educational institutions, judicial and police systems, public administrative services, financial and monetary institutions, and cultural capital. This book attempts to modify and extend the theoretical premises of orthodox economic theory to make them broad enough to analyze the economic implications of social common capital. It further aims to find the institutional arrangements and policy measures that will bring about the optimal state of affairs in which the natural and institutional components are blended together harmoniously to realize the sustainable state as suggested by John Stuart Mill.

This volume contains a selection of Professor Uzawa's important contributions to mathematical economics. Subjects covered by these nineteen essays include consumption, production, equilibrium, capital, growth, planning, international trade, and the theory of social overhead capital. Written in the 1960s and early 1970s, the papers form a basis upon which economic theory has developed over the last twenty years. The collection includes some of Uzawa's classic contributions, such as 'Preference and Rational Choice in the Theory of Consumption' (presented at the First Stanford Symposium), 'Time Preference, the Consumption Function, and Optimum Asset Holdings', 'Neutral Inventions and the Stability of Growth Equilibrium', 'On a Two-Sector Model of Economic Growth', 'Time Preference and the Penrose Effect in a Two-Class Model of Economic Growth', and 'On the Economics of Social Overhead Capital'. The collection will be useful not only in understanding the nature of the development in economic theory today, but also in reflecting upon the direction toward which economic theory will be advancing in the future.

Additional Contributing Authors Include Thomas Marschak, Robert Solow, Samuel Karlin, And Others.

Additional Contributing Authors Include Thomas Marschak, Robert Solow, Samuel Karlin, And Others.