Sublime

The most influential pessimist in modern economic thinking has no doubt been Thomas Robert Malthus, an English pastor writing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Malthus famously warned against trying to improve the lot of the poor, and even against the chances for long-term economic progress. He argued that following any rise in

“They have hired astronomers; they have hired mathematicians; they have hired physicists; they have even hired theologists. They never even interviewed an economist.”

and by demanding that governments set up regulatory structures in which new technologies can succeed. Are political leaders focusing on the biggest sources of emissions and the toughest technical challenges?

Human nature requires catastrophes to jolt us into change—but with some catastrophes, notably climate change, by the time that happens it may be too late.

With convergent growth and falling poverty, the world economy might seem to be out of the woods. Technological advances have put the end of poverty within reach, along with a rebalancing of the international order that is much fairer to the countries outside of the North Atlantic region. Yet complacency would be misplaced, and the rising anxiety le

Amartya Sen – work for which he won a Nobel-Memorial prize. The focus of development, Sen argues, should be on ‘advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live’.20 Instead of prioritising metrics like GDP, the aim should be to enlarge people’s capabilities – such as to be healthy, empowered a

In the twenty-first century, many dimensions of sustainable development will require public goods on a multi-country or global scale. Rivers, ecosystems, pollution, climate control, international financial flows, the Internet, power transmission, highway systems, railroad networks, and aviation all require strong regional and global cooperation. No