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.

Table of Contents:
VOLUME ONE ; 1. Facts and Values in Modern Economics ; PART I: INSTITUTIONS ; 2. Trust as a Commodity ; 3. The Economics of Social Capital ; 4. Information Disclosure and the Economics of Science and Technology, with P. David ; 5. Science as an Institution: Setting Priorities in a New Socio-Economic Context ; 6. The Implementation of Social Choice Rules: Some Basic Results in Incentive Compatibility, with P. Hammond and E. Maskin ; 7. On Imperfect Information and Optimal Pollution Control, with P. Hammond and E. Maskin ; 8. Fully Progressive Taxation, with P. Hammond ; 9. Decentralization and Rights ; PART II: INNOVATIONS ; 10. Industrial Structure and the Nature of Innovative Activity, with J.E. Stiglitz ; 11. Patents, Priority and Imitation, or, the Economics of Races and Waiting Games ; 12. The Simple Economics of Research Portfolios, with E. Maskin ; 13. Learning by Doing, Market Structure and Industrial and Trade Policies, with J.E. Stiglitz ; PART III: HUMAN VALUES ; 14. On Measuring the Quality of Life, with M. Weale ; 15. On the Robustness of Majority Rule, with E. Maskin ; 16. Uncertainty and Hyperbolic Discounting, with E. Maskin ; 17. On Some Alternative Criteria for Justice Between Generations ; 18. Discounting Climate Change ; 19. Conspicuous Consumption, Inconspicuous Leisure, with K.J. Arrow ; VOLUME TWO ; 1. Mathematics and Economic Reasoning, with J. Barrow-Green and I. Leader ; PART I: POVERTY ; 2. Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment, 1: Theory, with D. Ray ; 3. Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment, 2: Policy, with D. Ray ; 4. Nutritional Status, the Capacity for Work and Poverty Traps ; PART II: POPULATION ; 5. The Environment and Emerging Development Issues, with K.-G. Maler ; 6. Reproductive externalities and fertility behavior ; 7. Poverty Traps: Exploring the Complexity of Causation ; 8. On the Concept of Optimum Population ; 9. Regarding Optimum Population ; PART III: NATURAL RESOURCES ; 10. The Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resources, with G.M. Heal ; 11. The Taxation of Exhaustible Resources, with G.M. Heal and J.E.Stiglitz ; 12. Strategic Considerations in Invention and Innovation: The Case of Natural Resources, with R. Gilbert and J.E.Stiglitz ; 13. The Environment as a Commodity ; 14. Common Property Resources: Economic Analytics ; 15. Net National Product, Wealth, and Social Well-Being, with K.-G. Maler ; 16. The Genuine Savings Criterion and the Value of Population, with K.J. Arrow and K.-G. Maler ; 17. Nature and the Economy ; 18. The Welfare Economic Theory of Green National Accounts