The Public Choice Society honored Professor Prasanta Pattanaik with a fellowship at the organization’s meeting on March 12, 2004 in Baltimore. At the event, Pattanaik’s award was formally conferred at the beginning of the invited lecture that he delivered titled, “On Some Formulations of Rights and Freedom in Welfare Economics.”

Pattanaik’s paper examines the various mathematical models that have been constructed in welfare economics to articulate the notions of individual rights and freedom. At the meeting, numerous papers were presented with diverse topics, but they were all on issues relating to public choice.

The Public Choice Society consists of scholars from various disciplines (economics, political science, sociology, and philosophy) who work and study problems relating to public choice. James Buchanan, who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics for his contributions to the theory of public choice, and Gordon Tullock founded the Society in 1965. Since then, the organization has seen significant growth and now some 300 scholars from 16 countries attend its annual meetings.

Regarding his award, “I am deeply grateful to the Society for this honor. Throughout my academic career, my professional colleagues have been enormously kind and generous towards me. This honor is yet another instance of their generosity. It gives me much encouragement to strive to make significant contributions to the theory of welfare economics and social choice, which constitutes the main area of my research,” Pattanaik stated.

Professor Pattanaik has been at UCR since 1991. His current research interests lie mainly in the areas of welfare economics and the theory of social choice, decision theory (including the theory of choice under uncertainty and the theory of fuzzy preferences), and the measurement of deprivation and the standard of living. He is also interested in development economics and the methodology of economics

In the future, Pattanaik plans to write a book relating to welfare economics. He will co-write it with Professor Bhaskar Dutta from Warwick University in England.

For more information on Professor Pattanaik, please visit the Economics Department web-site at http://www.economics.ucr.edu/people/pattanaik.html.