2009 Annual Public Lecture "Law and Morality in Economic Life"

Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsay Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge delivered the RES Annual Public Lecture 2009 on 'Law and Morality in Economic Life' on 25 November 2009 at the Royal Institution, London and on 26 November 2009 at the Great Hall, Bristol Grammar School, Bristol. The lecture will be available for download from this website in December and a link to an audio interview with Sir Partha given on 26 November is below.

Sir Partha's lecture explored fundamental questions about our world by looking at differences in the institutions – cultural, legal, social, political and economic – within which people try to shape their lives. He showed the audience of sixth form students that the importance of law and morality in economic life follows from the essentiality of trust in the social world. The enormous differences in people’s lives are based in the extent to which they trust one another to comply with agreements.

A past President of the Royal Economic Society (1998-2001), Sir Partha Dasgupta FBA FRS is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and Professor of Environmental and Development Economics at the University of Manchester. His books include Economics : A Very Short Introduction, Human Well-being and the Natural Environment and An Inquiry into Well-being and Destitution.

Sir Partha was born in Dhaka and educated at Varanasi, Delhi, and Cambridge. 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.

Professor Dasgupta was named Knight Bachelor in the 2002 Queen’s birthday honours list for 'services to economics'; He is President-elect (2010) of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

Click HERE for Vox audio broadcast with Sir Partha Dasgupta

The details of the 2010 Public Lecture will be advertised on this website. Tickets will be available in early September 2010.

If you have further queries please contact the Society Administrator at royaleconsoc@st-andrews.ac.uk.