Wealth and Welfare. - 1912

London: Macmillan and Co, Limited,, 1912. Welfare economics First edition, first impression, of Pigou's early work which established his reputation as a leading economist and formed the basis for his magnum opus, The Economics of Welfare (1920), which is considered to have "virtually created the subject of welfare economics" (ODNB). Pigou argued that economic welfare is determined not only by the total amount of wealth in an economy but also by its distribution; he was concerned with analyzing and correcting imperfections in the market that resulted in lower levels of societal well-being. Wealth and Welfare was a book of economics with an obvious moral motivation, while still presenting economics as an objective science, bridging the tradition of his teacher Alfred Marshall and the Utilitarian philosophy of Henry Sidgwick. Economics, Pigou argued, is not an abstract science, but should yield practical results for social improvement. "In Wealth and Welfare, Pigou did not offer a collection of ad hoc solutions to temporary problems. Instead he provided a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding how economic welfare worked in society. Wealth and Welfare and its successor, The Economics of Welfare... were to do for welfare economics what Marshall's Principles did for economics as a whole. They would also make Pigou's name and, to a considerable degree, secure his place in history" (Kumekawa, p. 62). Pigou's premise that markets are not fully optimized for the good of society or self-regulating laid the ground for various schools of economics to promote government regulation. In this respect, Pigou was afterwards overshadowed by Keynes, whom he greatly influenced. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, endpapers replaced. Slight tape residue to spine, slight rubbing and soiling to cloth, library blindstamp to title page, else no other markings to contents: a very good copy. Ian Kumekawa, The First Serious Optimist: A. C. Pigou and the Birth of Welfare Economics, 2017.