Sir Partha Dasgupta | |
---|---|
Born | Partha Sarathi Dasgupta 17 November 1942 (age 82) |
Nationality | British |
Education | |
Spouse | Carol Dasgupta (m. 1968) |
Children | 3 |
Relatives | Amiya Kumar Dasgupta (father) |
Academic career | |
Field | Ecological economics |
Institution | |
Doctoral advisor | James Mirrlees |
Influences |
|
Awards |
|
Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta (born 17 November 1942) [1] is an Indian-British economist who is Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, [1] and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
He was born into a Baidya Brahmin family in Dhaka, and raised mainly in Varanasi, India, and is the son of the noted economist Amiya Kumar Dasgupta. He is married to Carol Dasgupta, who is a psychotherapist. They have three children, Zubeida (who is an educational psychologist), Shamik (a professor of philosophy), and Aisha (who is a demographer and works on the practice of family planning and reproductive health). His father-in-law was the Nobel Laureate James Meade.[ citation needed ]
Dasgupta was educated in Rajghat Besant School in Varanasi, India, obtaining his Matriculation Degree in 1958, and pursued undergraduate studies in Physics at Hans Raj College, University of Delhi, India, graduating in 1962 and in Mathematics at Cambridge (Trinity College), graduating in 1965. He was elected a member of the Apostles, a well-known discussion society at the university. He obtained a PhD in economics at Cambridge in 1968 with thesis titled Population, growth and non-transferable capital (investigations in the theory of optimum economic growth). [2] His PhD supervisor was Sir James Mirrlees, also a member of the Apostles.
His research interests have covered welfare and development economics; the economics of technological change; population, environmental, and resource economics; social capital; the theory of games; ecological economics, [3] and the economics of malnutrition. His work has been mainly applied-theoretical, but often highly mathematical, and many of his publications have been collaborative, among his co-authors being Kenneth Arrow, Scott Barrett, Ken Binmore, Aisha Dasgupta, Paul David, Paul Ehrlich, Lawrence Goulder, Sanjeev Goyal, Peter Hammond, Geoffrey Heal, Simon Levin, Stephen Marglin, Eric Maskin, Peter Raven, Debraj Ray, Amartya Sen, and Joseph Stiglitz.
Dasgupta had a long-standing collaboration with the late Karl-Goran Maler, with whom he developed the concept of 'inclusive wealth' as a measure of human well-being and helped to establish (with a grant from the McArthur Foundation, channelled through the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm) the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE), based in Kathmandu, which since 1999 has conducted annual teaching and research workshops on ecological economics for young economists based in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Simultaneously, Dasgupta and Maler helped to launch the journal Environmental and Development Economics (Cambridge University Press) so as to enable economists in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to publish original research in a western journal.
Although Dasgupta has worked on research problems in a number of fields, his long-standing interest has been ecological economics, beginning with his Ph.D. thesis in which he placed he problem of optimum population and saving in a model of economic possibilities in which the biosphere set limits on economic growth. His 1982 monograph, 'The Control of Resources', set an agenda for future research at the nexus of population, consumption, and the natural environment, which he has pursued step by step in a series of journal articles and books.
In 2019 he led production of a report on the economics of biodiversity, commissioned by the UK government, and published in February 2021 with the title 'The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review'. [4] An important objective was to develop a new measure to account for the capital inherent in the natural world (economist today call that 'natural capital') that could be used as an ingredient in, among other things, the evaluation of investment projects and assessment of the sustainability of economic programmes. [5] However, as Dasgupta writes in the Preface, the Review is an investigation into a larger concern, in that it reconstructs contemporary growth and development economics and the economics of poverty by recognising that the human economy is embedded in Nature, it is not external to Nature. The Review explores the far reaching implications of the altered perspective.
Dasgupta taught at the London School of Economics (Lecturer 1971–1975; Reader 1975–1978; Professor of Economics 1978–1984 [6] ) [1] and moved to the University of Cambridge in January 1985 as Professor of Economics (and Professorial Fellow of St John's College), [1] where he served as Chair of the Faculty of Economics between 1997 and 2001. From 1989 until 1992 he was on leave from the University of Cambridge and served as Professor of Economics, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Program in Ethics in Society at Stanford University, USA. [1] In October 1991 he returned to Cambridge, on leave from Stanford University, to re-assume his chair at Cambridge. He resigned from Stanford in 1992 and has remained in Cambridge since then. In 1994 his chair was named by the University of Cambridge the Frank Ramsey Professorship of Economics.
During 1991–97 Dasgupta was Chairman of the (Scientific Advisory) Board of the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm. During 1999–2009 he served as a Founder Member of the Management and Advisory Committee of the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE), [1] based in Kathmandu. In 1996 he helped to establish the journal Environment and Development Economics, published by Cambridge University Press, whose purpose has been not only to publish original research at the interface of poverty and the environmental-resource base, but also to provide an opportunity to scholars in poor countries to publish their findings in an international journal.
During 2008-2013 he was a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Manchester's Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI). He was also an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large from 2007 until 2013 at Cornell University and from 2010 until 2011 President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). He has been a patron of the population concern charity Population Matters (formerly the Optimum Population Trust) since 2008. During 2011-2014 he was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) on Global Environmental Change, Bonn. He served as Chair of the Central Government Expert Group on Green National Accounting for India which submitted its report in 2013. He is Chairman of the Management Committee of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. [7] [8]
Dasgupta has been honoured by elections as: Fellow of the Econometric Society [1] (1975); Fellow of the British Academy (1989); Fellow of the Royal Society (2004); Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, 2013; Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics, 2017; Fellow of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economics, 2019; Fellow of the Society for Cost-Benefit Analysis; Member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (1997); Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (formally the Academy of Science for the Developing World), 2001; Member of Academia Europaea (2009); Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1991); [1] Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [1] (1991); Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (2001); Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society (2005); [1] Foreign Member of Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (2009); Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics (1994 [6] ); Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (2010); Honorary Member of the American Economic Association (1997); Distinguished Fellow, CES, University of Munich, 2011; and President of the Royal Economic Society (1998–2001), the European Economic Association (1999), Section F (Economics) of the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) Festival of Science (2006), and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (2010–2011).
Dasgupta was knighted in the 2002 Birthday Honours for services to economics. [9] He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to economics and the natural environment. [10]
Two collections of essays have been published in his honour:
"Environment & Development Economics: Essays in Honour of Sir Partha Dasgupta," edited by S. Barrett, K.-G. Maler, and E.S. Maskin (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2014.
"Sustainable Consumption: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives in Honour of Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta," edited by D. Southerton and A. Ulph (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2014.
Dasgupta was co-recipient (with Karl-Göran Mäler) of the 2002 Volvo Environment Prize; [11] and (also with Mäler) of the 2004 Boulding Award of the International Society for Ecological Economics;, [12] co-recipient (with Geoffrey Heal) of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists' "Publication of Enduring Quality Award 2003" for their book, Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources; recipient of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, 2007, of the American Agricultural Economics Association; recipient of the Zayed International Environment Prize (II: scientific and technological achievements) in 2011; and recipient of the European Lifetime Achievement Award (in Environmental and Resource Economics) from the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2014. In 2007, together with Eric Maskin he was awarded the Erik Kempe Award in Environmental and Resource Economics, a joint prize of the Kempe Foundation and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). He was awarded the 2015 Blue Planet Prize for Environmental Research, [13] the 2016 Tyler Prize, and the Kew International Medal, 2021 of the Royal Botanical Garden, Kew. In 2022 he was honoured by Freedom of the City of London by Special Invitation. The same year he was awarded the Champions of the Earth award for Science and Innovation by the UNEP. For 2023 he was awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category "Economics, Finance and Management". [14]
Dasgupta was awarded a Doctorate (Honoris Causa) by Wageningen University, 2000; Catholic University of Louvain, 2007; Faculte Université Saint-Louis, 2009; University of Bologna, 2010; Tilburg University, 2012; Harvard University, 2013; University of York, 2017.
Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical or empirical studies of the economic effects of national or local environmental policies around the world. ... Particular issues include the costs and benefits of alternative environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, toxic substances, solid waste, and global warming."
Kenneth Joseph Arrow was an American economist, mathematician and political theorist. He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1957, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972, along with John Hicks.
Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics, or ecol-econ is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems, both intertemporally and spatially. By treating the economy as a subsystem of Earth's larger ecosystem, and by emphasizing the preservation of natural capital, the field of ecological economics is differentiated from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment. One survey of German economists found that ecological and environmental economics are different schools of economic thought, with ecological economists emphasizing strong sustainability and rejecting the proposition that physical (human-made) capital can substitute for natural capital.
Sir James Alexander Mirrlees was a British economist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was knighted in the 1997 Birthday Honours.
William Jack Baumol was an American economist. He was a professor of economics at New York University, Academic Director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He was a prolific author of more than eighty books and several hundred journal articles. He is the namesake of the Baumol effect.
Herman Edward Daly was an American ecological and Georgist economist and professor at the School of Public Policy of University of Maryland, College Park in the United States, best known for his time as a senior economist at the World Bank from 1988 to 1994. In 1996, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "defining a path of ecological economics that integrates the key elements of ethics, quality of life, environment and community."
Garrett James Hardin was an American ecologist and microbiologist. He focused his career on the issue of human overpopulation, and is best known for his exposition of the tragedy of the commons in a 1968 paper of the same title in Science, which called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable."
Kenneth George "Ken" Binmore, is an English mathematician, economist, and game theorist, a Professor Emeritus of Economics at University College London (UCL) and a Visiting Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol. As a founder of modern economic theory of bargaining, he made important contributions to the foundations of game theory, experimental economics, evolutionary game theory and analytical philosophy. He took up economics after holding the Chair of Mathematics at the London School of Economics. The switch has put him at the forefront of developments in game theory. His other interests include political and moral philosophy, decision theory, and statistics. He has written over 100 scholarly papers and 14 books.
Leonid Hurwicz was a Polish–American economist and mathematician, known for his work in game theory and mechanism design. He originated the concept of incentive compatibility, and showed how desired outcomes can be achieved by using incentive compatible mechanism design. Hurwicz shared the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal work on mechanism design. Hurwicz was one of the oldest Nobel Laureates, having received the prize at the age of 90.
Eric Stark Maskin is an American economist and mathematician. He was jointly awarded the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory". He is the Adams University Professor and Professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard University.
Debraj Ray is an Indian-American economist, who is currently teaching and working at New York University. His research interests focus on development economics and game theory. Ray served as Co-editor of the American Economic Review between 2012 and 2020.
Daniel W. Bromley is an economist, the former Anderson-Bascom Professor of applied economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and since 2009, Emeritus Professor. His research in institutional economics explains the foundations of property rights, natural resources and the environment; and economic development. He has been editor of the journal Land Economics since 1974.
Amiya Kumar Dasgupta was an Indian economist who has been described as "one of the founding fathers of modern economics in India" and "a true pioneer in developmental economics". He was the father of economist Sir Partha Dasgupta.
Michael Scott Taylor is a Canadian economist, who studies the interaction between international trade and environmental outcomes. He is currently the Canada Research Chair in International, Energy and Environmental Economics at the University of Calgary, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Fellow of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics. He is also the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel (2010). In 2014, Scott Taylor was named fellow to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC).
Richard B. Norgaard is a professor emeritus of ecological economics in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, the first chair and a continuing member of the independent science board of CALFED, and a founding member and former president of the International Society for Ecological Economics. He received the Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award in 2006 for recognition of advancements in research combining social theory and the natural sciences. He is considered one of the founders of and a continuing leader in the field of ecological economics.
Jeroen Cornelis Johannes Maria van den Bergh is an environmental economist of Dutch origin. As of January 2015 he was ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and deputy director for Research of its Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, and professor of Environmental and Resource Economics at VU University Amsterdam.
Kate Raworth is an English economist known for "doughnut economics", an economic model that balances between essential human needs and planetary boundaries. Raworth is senior associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and a Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Clive L. Spash is an ecological economist. He currently holds the Chair of Public Policy and Governance at Vienna University of Economics and Business, appointed in 2010. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Environmental Values.
Karl-Göran Mäler was a Swedish economist.
The Department of Economics is an academic department of the University of Oxford within the Social Sciences Division. Relatively recently founded in 1999, the department is located in the Norman Foster-designed Manor Road Building.