About the Lecture

I begin with a definition of a public good in general and note the difference between national/domestic and global public goods. I argue that global public good provision may be more difficult than national public good provision and as illustrations list several examples of actual global public goods including climate change. I then argue that global public goods have and will become increasingly important and their provision may require negotiations between sovereign countries. In the rest of the lecture, I focus on the problem of climate change and discuss how it can be possibly addressed.

About the Speaker 

Parkash Chander, Professor of Economics and Executive Director of Center for Environmental Economics and Climate Change at Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, an Associate Editor of Journal of Public Economic Theory, a member of the Advisory Board of Journal of Economic Surveys, and a member of the International Advisory Board of Singapore Economic Review. He has previously held professorial positions at Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi and National University of Singapore (in reverse order). He was formerly Head of Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi and Head of Department of Economics, National University of Singapore.

He has researched primarily in the areas of public economics, environmental economics, and game theory and its applications to climate change. His publications include articles in Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economic Theory and other leading journals in economics. He has recently completed a book on climate change. He has also written on policy matters in national newspapers and magazines.

Professor Chander has held visiting appointments at Johns Hopkins University, California Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, and CORE (Louvain-la-Neuve) among other institutions.