An Inquiry into Well-being and Destitution

About the Author: Partha Dasgupta is Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St. John's College. He was also Professor of Economics, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Program in Ethics in Society at Stanford University from 1989-1992. He is Research Advisor to the United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economics Research, Chairman of the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, and Senior Research Fellow of the Institute for Policy Reform.

Part 1 Well-being - theory and realization: the commodity basis of well-being; political morality and the state; the object of social contracts; well-being - from theory to measurement; appendix - political and civil rights indices. Part 2 Allocation of resources among households - the standard theory: resource allocation mechanisms; public goods and common property resources; decentralization and central guidance; real national income as a measure of general well-being; uncertainty, insurance and social norms. Part 3 The household and its setting - extensions of the standard theory: land, labour, savings and credit; households and credit constraints; poverty and the environmental resource base; net national product in a dynamic economy; food, care and work - the household as an allocation mechanism; axiomatic bargaining theory; fertility and resources - the household as a reproductive unit; strategic complementarities in fertility decisions; population and savings - normative considerations; classical utilitarianism in a limited world; food needs and work capacity; adaptation to nourishment; inequality, malnutrition and the disenfranchised; analysis of allocation mechanisms when nutrition affects productivity; incentives and development policies. Subject index: agrarian reform; food subsidies; employment guarantee schemes and rural infrastructure; community participation and credit facilities; health and education; envoi.