Partha Dasgupta
Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Economic Thought (2011-2012)
The Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Economic Thought seeks to examine the complex factors behind the economies and economic issues of today’s world. It is an opportunity for leading economists – both practitioners and academics – to participate with students and members of the public in exchanges about many of the issues facing the world today.
The Visiting Professorship in Economic Thought is made possible by the generous support of Donald Marron and is hosted by All Souls College, Oxford.
Sir Partha Dasgupta is Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge.
Sir Partha Dasgupta’s lecture, entitled Time and the Generations, presented an overview of the process by which we assess economic performance and prescribe policy remedies. He elaborated on each step along with the history of the development of methods, focusing on the issue of sustaining human well-being across the generations.
His lecture set the stage for the following workshops and seminars entitled Discounting Climate Change and The Idea of Personhood in Intergenerational Wellbeing, where Professor Dasgupta gave a much more detailed view of the analytics of assessing economic performance and prescribing remedies for a more specialised audience. He was joined by Professor Sir Robert Watson, DEFRA Chief Scientific Advisor and Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Professor John Broome, White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford, who each gave a masterclass. Professor Watson’s masterclass focused on the implementation of Professor Dasgupta’s assessment and policy approaches in the context of the UK government climate-change policy. Professor Watson was uniquely qualified to lead this class given his work as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Professor Broome’s masterclass explored the theme from a philosophical and moral perspective.
