GOOD, ECONOMIC WELFARE, AND THE NATIONAL DIVIDEND—PIGOU’S WELFARE TRIAD

Abstract

Arthur Pigou’s welfare treatises are exercises in practical ethics. The exercises were founded on the ethical concepts of good and economic welfare with the economist’s national dividend providing the practical instrument for solving economic problems. This paper follows this triad from its origins in Pigou’s earliest writings on ethics and economic policy, into the welfare treatises, and onto his last writings—a period of around fifty years.