‘Imagine a football team which measures its success only on the basis of the goals it scores and doesn’t count the goals it concedes. That football team could be losing right through without recognising it…’

For as long as they have existed, our economic models have served us an incomplete picture.

The models and metrics tells us that our economies are healthy because they are growing. However, this doesn't account for the fact that our growth is driven by a resource that we take for free and treat as infinite: nature. For centuries we have been using it as if it were both, but we know now, more than ever, that our demand on the natural world is unsustainable. It's no longer sufficient to only see part of the picture; it's time that our economic models show us the whole thing.

In On Natural Capital, renowned Cambridge economist Sir Partha Dasgupta lays out a seminal and groundbreaking new approach to economics. Challenging everything that has come before, he asks, what if we were to put a value on nature just as we value everything else?

An urgent call to transform the focus and structures of global economics, On Natural Capital is a bold and groundbreaking book that could, truly, change everything.

This book is volume 3 of the proceedings of the World Economic Congress held in Athens in August 1989, under the auspices of the International Economic Association. It considers various aspects of economic policy and development faced by countries with different social, cultural and political systems.;Part 1 deals with agricultural issues, with an emphasis on public choice theory and aspects of welfare in various countries, including the USA and the European Community. In Part 2, food security and nutrition issues are analyzed, and the problems of achieving sufficient nutrition levels and sex bias are tackled, with case studies ranging from sub-Saharan Africa to Bangladesh. Part 3 is devoted primarily to debt, trade and industrialization issues in developing countries. Five case studies are presented, concentrating on Latin America and Africa, and solutions are proposed to intractable problems. Lastly, in Part 4, development within centrally planned economies is considered. The four papers in this section provide an up-to-date assessment of some of the problems of economic transition from central planning to market economy and the implications for the role of central government.

Economists often assume that ecosystem and population dynamics are subject to convex, even linear processes. But research by ecosystem and population ecologists suggests that such processes are very often non-convex, for example a possible flip of the Gulf Stream due to fresh water intrusion from melting glaciers. This has dramatic implications for environmental and resource economics, since mistakes in management could prove more costly than imagined.

Transnational commons, cross-border areas without well-defined property rights, have long been ignored in 'official' development economics. This volume redresses the balance by adopting an environmental approach which stresses the importance of shared natural resources and the links between acute poverty and environmental degradation. The Economics of Transnational Commons draws together eminent contributors from fields as diverse as law, population studies, social anthropology, biological sciences, and economics, to present authoritative accounts that combine empirical case-studies with rigorous theoretical foundations. Despite the milti-disciplinary approach, the main focus of the articles is the same: that the reciprocal externalities and problems of free-riding created by any common resource are complicated in the case of transnational commons by difficulties in monitoring, enforcement, and unequal access to information. Often using theories of negotiation taken from game theory, the studies then suggest possible solutions, both at an institutional and educational level. In order to make these materials suitable for teaching purposes, the authors have been encouraged to survey their topics rather than present their most recent findings. A companion publication, The Environment and Emerging Development Issues Volumes 1-11 (edited by Dasgupta and Mahler), deals with national environmental issues.

Is knowledge an economic good? Which are the characteristics of the institutions regulating the production and diffusion of knowledge? Cumulation of knowledge is a key determinant of economic growth, but only recently knowledge has moved to the core of economic analysis. Recent literature also gives profound insights into events like scientific progress, artistic and craft development which have been rarely addressed as socio-economic institutions, being the domain of sociologists and historians rather than economists. This volume adopts a multidisciplinary approach to bring knowledge in the focus of attention, as a key economic issue.

Handbook in Environmental Economics, Volume 4, the latest in this ongoing series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting timely chapters on Modeling Ecosystems and Economic Systems, Framing Sustainability Policy Questions: Who Leads - Ecology or Economics?, Valuing Natural Capital Within an Integrated Economic Ecological, Developing Economies, Urbanization, Climate Change and Health, Viewing Environmental Policy Instruments for Domestic and International Perspective, Quasi experimental Estimation of Environmental Policies, Environment Macro, The Rules for Formal and Informal Institutions in Managing Environmental Resources, and How Should Uncertainty Be Integrated into the Methods for Policy Evaluation?

This is a collection of theoretical papers, including contributions by Partha Dasgupta and three Nobel prize-winning economists: Kenneth Arrow, Amartya Sen, and Joseph Stiglitz. Originally published in 1982.

Is knowledge an economic good? Which are the characteristics of the institutions regulating the production and diffusion of knowledge? Cumulation of knowledge is a key determinant of economic growth, but only recently knowledge has moved to the core of economic analysis. Recent literature also gives profound insights into events like scientific progress, artistic and craft development which have been rarely addressed as socio-economic institutions, being the domain of sociologists and historians rather than economists. This volume adopts a multidisciplinary approach to bring knowledge in the focus of attention, as a key economic issue.

Economists often assume that ecosystem and population dynamics are subject to convex, even linear processes. But research by ecosystem and population ecologists suggests that such processes are very often non-convex, for example a possible flip of the Gulf Stream due to fresh water intrusion from melting glaciers. This has dramatic implications for environmental and resource economics, since mistakes in management could prove more costly than imagined.

Kenneth J. Arrow's pathbreaking "impossibility theorem" was a watershed innovation in the history of welfare economics, voting theory, and collective choice, demonstrating that there is no voting rule that satisfies the four desirable axioms of decisiveness, consensus, nondictatorship, and independence. In this book Eric Maskin and Amartya Sen explore the implications of Arrow's theorem. Sen considers its ongoing utility, exploring the theorem's value and limitations in relation to recent research on social reasoning, and Maskin discusses how to design a voting rule that gets us closer to the ideal-given the impossibility of achieving the ideal. The volume also contains a contextual introduction by social choice scholar Prasanta K. Pattanaik and commentaries from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow himself, as well as essays by Maskin, Dasgupta, and Sen outlining the mathematical proof and framework behind their assertions.

The rapidly increasing human pressure on the biosphere is pushing biodiversity into the sixth mass extinction event in the history of life on Earth. The organisms being exterminated are integral working parts of our planet's life support system, and their loss is permanent. Like climate change, this irreversible loss has potentially devastating consequences for humanity. As we come to recognise the many ways in which we depend on nature, this can pave the way for a new ethic that acknowledges the importance of co-existence between humans and other species. Biological Extinction features chapters contributed by leading thinkers in diverse fields of knowledge and practice, including biology, economics, geology, archaeology, demography, architecture and intermediate technology. Drawing on examples from various socio-ecological systems, the book offers new perspectives on the urgent issue of biological extinction, proposing novel solutions to the problems that we face.

Economics has the capacity to offer us deep insights into some of the most formidable problems of life, and offer solutions to them too. Combining a global approach with examples from everyday life, Partha Dasgupta describes the lives of two children who live very different lives in different parts of the world: in the Mid-West USA and in Ethiopia. He compares the obstacles facing them, and the processes that shape their lives, their families, and their futures. He shows how economics uncovers these processes, finds explanations for them, and how it forms policies and solutions. Along the way, Dasgupta provides an intelligent and accessible introduction to key economic factors and concepts such as individual choices, national policies, efficiency, equity, development, sustainability, dynamic equilibrium, property rights, markets, and public goods. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A growing awareness of the contribution that technological change has made and can make to economic and social welfare has brought science and technology policy to the forefront of public discussions in both national and international forums. The papers in this volume, first presented at a Centre for Economic Policy Research conference held in London in September 1986 on the Economics of Technology Policy, represent a wide ranging contribution to the debate. Generally aimed at the non-specialist, the papers cover both the experience and application of policy as well as providing in-depth discussions of the rationale for intervention in the process of technological change. The authors include both policy-makers (Barber, Ergas and White) and the academic economists (Dasgupta, David, Griliches, Lyons, Pakes, Stiglitz and Stoneman). The volume will be of particular interest to policy-makers and their advisers concerned with technology-related issues and will contribute significantly to undergraduate and graduate courses in the same area.

These volumes present a set of authoritative studies of the role of environmental resources in the economic development process, written by leading scholars in a wide range of associated fields. Contributors address the problems connected with the management of local common property resources, such as soil, water, forests and their products, animals and fisheries, and supply both explanations of existing situations and policies for the future. To provide material that can be used in classroom teaching, the chapters are written as surveys rather than expositions of contributors' most recent work.

An interdisciplinary book by one of the most respected scholars in what is broadly development economics but encompasses the most recent insights from philosophical research and empirical work on resource allocation, nutrition science, and anthropology. It has been widely recognized as a seminal work presenting a wide-ranging description of the causes and remedies of poverty and undernourishment, and addressing the current debate over methods of estimating their incidence.

In Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment, Partha Dasgupta explores ways to measure the quality of life. In developing quality of life indices, he pays particular attention to the natuaral environment, illustrating how it can be incorporated, more generally, into economic reasoning in a seamless manner. Such familiar terms as "sustainable development," "social discount rates," and Earth's "carrying capacity" are given a firm theoretical underpinning. The author shows that, whether we are interested in valuing the state of affairs in a country or in evaluating economic policy there. The index that should be used is the economy's wealth, which is the social worth of its capital assets.
Dasgupta puts the theory he develops to use in extended commentaries on the economics of population, poverty traps, global warming, structural adjustment programs, and free trade, particularly in relation to poor countries. The result is a treatise that goes beyond quality-of-life measures and offers a comprehensive account of the newly emergent subject of ecological economics.
With the publication of this new paperback edition, Dasgupta has taken the opportunity to update and revise his text in a number of ways, including developments to facilitate its current use on a number of graduate courses in environmental and resource economics. The treatment of the welfare economics of imperfect economies has been developed using new findings, and the appendix has been expanded to include applications of the theory to a number of institutions and to develop approximate formulae for estimating the value of environmental natural resources.

In Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment, Partha Dasgupta explores ways to measure the quality of life. In developing quality-of-life indices, he pays particular attention to the natural environment, illustrating how it can be incorporated, more generally, into economic reasoning in a seamless manner. Professor Dasgupta puts the theory that he develops to use in extended commentaries on the economics of population, poverty traps, global warming, structural adjustment programmes, and free trade, particularly in relation to poor countries. The result is a treatise that goes beyond quality-of-life measures and offers a comprehensive account of the newly emergent subject of ecological economics.

These volumes present a set of authoritative studies of the role of environmental resources in the economic development process, written by leading scholars in a wide range of associated fields. Contributors address the problems connected with the management of local common property resources, such as soil, water, forests and their products, animals and fisheries, and supply both explanations of existing situations and policies for the future. To provide material that can be used in classroom teaching, the chapters are written as surveys rather than expositions of contributors' most recent work.

This book presents a set of authoritative studies of the role of environmental resources in the development process, written by some of the most expert professionals in a wide range of associated fields. Contributors address the problems connected with the management of local common property resources, such as soil, water, forests and their products, animals and fisheries, and supply both explanations of existing situations and policies for the future. This volume will be the definitive codification of our understanding of geographically localised environmental problems for some time.

Two and a half billion people are affected directly on a day to day basis by the allocation and use of purely local resources. Yet `official' development economics has concentrated on headline international issues and only recently begun to take account of the dependence of poor countries on their natural resources, the link between acute poverty and environmental degredation, and the problems associated with the management of local common property such as soil and soil cover, water, forests and their products, animals and fisheries. In these volumes, which are part of the WIDER programme on the Economics of the Environment, expert contributors provide a set of authoritative studies of emerging development issues, ranging from foundational matters to case studies, original research (in areas where there has been a paucity of work) to survey papers. They address both analytic and empirical issues on the role of environmental resources in the development process, presenting explanations of existing situations and policies for the future. A wealth of interests and backgrounds is represented and reflected in the cross-fertilization between papers.

The rapidly increasing human pressure on the biosphere is pushing biodiversity into the sixth mass extinction event in the history of life on Earth. The organisms being exterminated are integral working parts of our planet's life support system, and their loss is permanent. Like climate change, this irreversible loss has potentially devastating consequences for humanity. As we come to recognise the many ways in which we depend on nature, this can pave the way for a new ethic that acknowledges the importance of co-existence between humans and other species. Biological Extinction features chapters contributed by leading thinkers in diverse fields of knowledge and practice, including biology, economics, geology, archaeology, demography, architecture and intermediate technology. Drawing on examples from various socio-ecological systems, the book offers new perspectives on the urgent issue of biological extinction, proposing novel solutions to the problems that we face.

The Selected Papers of Partha Dasgupta brings together the works of one of the most distinguished economists working today. Professor Dasgupta was Knighted in 2002 for services to economics and his research interests have covered welfare and development economics, the economics of technological change, population, environmental and resource economics, the theory of games, and the economics of undernutrition.
This two-volume collection represents a body of work spanning 40 years and contains a selection of Dasgupta's most original papers on six key themes. Both volumes feature foundational papers and substantial original introductions. The articles reflect inter-disciplinary scholarship in the author's search for a unifying way to analyse the problems people face in trying to allocate resources over time, among groups, and across uncertain contingencies. Each volume opens with an extended essay explaining the motivation underlying economics; the concept of what economics is about and how modern economists move within it.
The author makes essential use of findings in anthropology, demography, ecology, geography, moral philosophy, and the environmental and nutritional sciences, but studies social phenomena through the lens of economics, to unravel the pathways by which scarce resources are produced, exchanged, and disseminated.

This book provides an account of the current understanding of social capital. It covers both theoretical and empirical studies, and the concept is debated throughout. Also included in this volume is the classic 1987 article by the late James Coleman, 'Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital', which formed the basis for the development of social capital as an organizing concept in the social sciences. The volume is divided into areas that cover the analytical foundations and institutional and statistical analyses of social capital.