Description
Book SynopsisTime and the Generations blends economics, philosophy, and ecology to offer an original lens on the difficult topic of global population. Partha Dasgupta provides tentative answers to two fundamental questions: What level of economic activity can our planet support over the long run, and what does the answer say about optimum population numbers?
Trade ReviewWith this wonderfully wide-ranging, brilliant, and generous book, Partha Dasgupta joins his admired mentor, Kenneth Arrow, in the elite band of economists who have appreciated and contributed to the philosophical underpinnings of their subject. The relationship goes both ways, for by bringing in an economist’s sense of ecological and biological realities, he is able to modify and transcend the contributions of philosophers such as Mill, Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit. The result is an astonishing monument to a lifetime of hard thought about population, sustainability, savings, and human welfare. -- Simon Blackburn, Bertrand Russell Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
In recent decades, we’ve seen human impacts on the biosphere surge far beyond sustainable levels, raising deeply vexing questions about the path ahead. With intellectual elegance and insight, Dasgupta delves into the moral, economic, and environmental dimensions of global population and living standards. This rigorous book opens a normative approach to the fraught choices confronting all of us. -- Gretchen Daily, Bing Professor of Environmental Science, Stanford University
What a book! Written with pellucid refinement and compelling responsibility, it incisively appraises humankind’s numbers in tandem with assessments of ecology, time, personal decisions, and varied social and economic circumstances. Composed at the frontiers of norms and methods, philosophy and economics, demography and social analysis,
Time and the Generations offers a systematic and bracing homage to heterodox reason in the spirit of Kenneth Arrow. -- Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University
A brilliant and original analysis of the population-consumption-environment nexus that will determine the quality of human futures on this troubled planet. This book will set the standard with which future discussions on this vital subject are conducted. -- Peter H. Raven, president emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden
Time and the Generations is a fascinating and enlightening work. Partha Dasgupta and his interlocutors have created a captivating and challenging book. -- Menahem Yaari, S.A. Schonbrunn Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Economics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
[Dasgupta] uses unique and original analysis of the link between environment, population and material consumption. * Choice *
An excellent work. * Quarterly Review of Biology *
Table of ContentsIn Memoriam: Kenneth Joseph Arrow (1921–2017)
Foreword, by Robert M. Solow
Preface
Random Thoughts on “Birth and Death,” by Kenneth J. Arrow
Birth and Death: Arrow Lecture
1. Economic Demography
2. Utilitarian Ethics
3. Ends and Means
4. Synopsis
Part I: Foundations5. Genesis Under Total Utilitarianism
6. Death
7. A Problem Like Sleeping Beauty
8. Generation-Centered Prerogatives in the Timeless World
9. Generations Across the Indefinite Future
Part II: Applications10. The Biosphere as a Renewable Natural Resource
11. Estimates of Globally Optimum Population
12. Technology and Institutions
13. Existential Risks and Informed Ends
Appendix 1: Socially-Embedded Well-Being Functions
Appendix 2: Common Property Resources and Reproductive Choices
Appendix 3: Notes on Rawls’ Principle of Just Saving
Appendix 4: Modeling the Biosphere
Appendix 5: Inclusive Wealth and Social Well-Being
Appendix 6: Valuing Freedom of Choice
References
Commentary on Birth and Death, by Scott Barrett
Commentary on Birth and Death, by Eric Maskin
Commentary on Birth and Death, by Joseph Stiglitz
Response to Commentaries
Epilogue
Socially Embedded Preferences, Environmental Externalities, and Reproductive Rights, with Aisha Dasgupta—Reprinted from
Population and Development Review (September 2017)
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index
