The First Serious Optimist : Princeton University Press : 9780691163482 : 0691163480 : 13 Jun 2017 : A groundbreaking intellectual biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential economists The First Serious Optimist is an intellectual biography of the British economist A. C. Pigou (1877?1959), a founder of welfare economics and one of the twentieth century's most important and original thinkers. Though long overshadowed by his intellectual rival John Maynard Keynes, Pigou was instrumental in focusing economics on the public welfare. And his reputation is experiencing a renaissance today, in part because his idea of "externalities" or spillover costs is the basis of carbon taxes. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources, Ian Kumekawa tells how Pigou reshaped the way the public thinks about the economic role of government and the way economists think about the public good. Setting Pigou's ideas in their personal, political, social, and ethical context, the book follows h