Nobel Prize-winning economist James Mirrlees is one of the world's leading figures in welfare, development, and public sector economics. This volume brings together for the first time twenty-three of his seminal papers on welfare economics, tax theory, public expenditure, contract theory, growth...

In this paper, I shall discuss how national income should be measured in an 'imperfect' economy, where feasible policy instruments such as taxes, tariffs, quotas, and quantitative controls do not operate in a lumpsum manner, and may be far from their optimum level. In particular, I want to...