
Presented by
Sir Partha Dasgupta
Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics
University of Cambridge
with discussants
Scott Barrett
Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics
SIPA and the Earth Institute
Columbia University
Geoffrey Heal
Garrett Professor of Public Policy & Corporate Responsibility
Columbia Business School
and
Joseph E. Stiglitz
University Professor
Columbia University
with
Kenneth J. Arrow
Joan Kenney Professor of Economics
Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus
Stanford University.
Sir Dasgupta's lecture will focus on the weakness in customary formulations of the idea of intergenerational well-being, and the resulting literature on the economics of climate change.
About Sir Partha Dasgupta:
Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics and past chairman of the faculty of economics and politics at the University of Cambridge. From 1991 to 1997, Dasgupta was chairman of the scientific board of the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and, from 1989 to 1992, professor of economics and philosophy, and director of the Program in Ethics in Society at Stanford University. 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 under nutrition.
Dasgupta is a fellow of St. John's College, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a fellow of the British Academy, foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, honorary fellow of the London School of Economics, honorary member of the American Economic Association, member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences. He is a past president of the Royal Economic Society (1998-2001) and the European Economic Association (1999). Dasgupta was named Knight Bachelor by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2002 in her Birthday Honours List for services to economics and was co-recipient (with Karl Goran Maler) of the 2002 Volvo Environment Prize. He is a fellow of the Royal Society (elected 2004) and a foreign member of the American Philosophical Society (elected 2005)." />
The Committee on Global Thought presents
The Fourth Annual Arrow Lecture
Time and Persons in the Economics of Climate Change
April 13, 2011 · 6:00-8:00PM
Columbia University, Low Library Rotunda
- Partha Dasgupta, Professor of Economics, University of Cambridge
Discussants
- Kenneth Arrow, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Stanford University
- Scott Barrett, Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics, The Earth Institute, Columbia University
- Geoffrey Heal, Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, the Columbia Business School, Columbia University
- Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor and Co-Chair, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University
Sir Partha Dasgupta’s 2011 Arrow Lecture argues that the conventional moral formula used in discussing the economics of intergenerational justice in the context of global climate change is flawed, in that it does now have space for moral personhood. Dasgupta shows how Ramsey, Koopmans and Harsanyi use three distinct moral theories but arrived at the same moral formula for calculating intergenerational well-being. He then looks at recent interpretations of this formula by Cline, Stern and Nordhaus and the parameters of time preferences and consumption growth that led to their estimates of the discount rate. In Dasgupta’s view, the lack of agreement among these estimates stems from the different philosophical foundations that led to the selection of the parameters. Dasgupta then argues that time parameters change when we consider that people make a distinction between the self and others on personal matters, but on public matters, treat others impartially. This demands two discount rates, one private and one public. Dasgupta then concludes that the discount rate is a meaningless concept, and that the value unit of consumption across time, persons and generations are more significant. The valuation of marginal consumption changes on different people at different times and across contemporaries–and understanding the moral theories that are the basis of that valuation–is more important than discount rates.
View Sir Dasgupta’s 2011 Arrow Lecture Presentation