Among economists and demographers, the dominant view of the effect of growing human numbers on the natural environment has alternated between concern and dismissal.

During the seminar, Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta and Aisha Dasgupta will be discussing various topics concerning population and consumption, with a focus on the exceeded capacity of the biosphere to supply human’s demands.

The conversation will also be built around the potential synergy between theory and practice.
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta has spent much of his professional life working on the theory and empirics of poverty and inequality. His cutting-edge research covers welfare and development economics, the economics of technological change, population, environmental and resource economics, game theory and the economics of malnutrition. His more recent work has involved investigating the idea of sustainable development in which pure economic reasoning frequently collides with ecological and social concerns.

Dr Aisha Dasgupta was awarded a Ph.D in 2014 by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, on the relationship between family planning, and fertility. Her field work was conducted in Malawi. She currently works at the UN Population Division in New York. Previously she worked at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Marie Stopes International, London, respectively. Her practical work and academic research cover: demography, family planning, population, sexual and reproductive health, HIV, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV, food security and food system.