First published in 1950, this book was concerned with the exposition, criticism, and appreciation of the theory of economic welfare as it had been developed to that date. Now reissued, Little has added a new retrospective preface in which he assesses the contribution the book made in the light of subsequent literature in the area.

Ian Little has been one of the most significant British contributors to economics in the post-war era. His contributions to Welfare Economics and Development Economics have been highly influential and well-regarded throughout the world. This book is a fascinating insight into the personal and intellectual development of Professor Little, containing both the most important articles of his working life and autobiographical chapters.

Concentration data - which expresses the relative importance of the largest firms in an industry - covering almost the entire range of British industry, were made available for this study, first published in 1960, by the Board of Trade. The authors combined with each industry's concentration-ratio with the average and relative sizes of its constituent firms and plants, and so sought to determine its structural type. Then, by comparing these results with those of an earlier study, they established in which trades significant changes in concentration occurred since 1935. Two chapters describe...