Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey professor emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge and fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. In April 2019 Professor Dasgupta was invited by the then chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK Government to prepare a review of the economics of biodiversity. The review was submitted to the UK Treasury in February 2021 under the title, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review.

Professor Dasgupta is a fellow of the British Academy (1989), fellow of the Royal Society (2004), fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) (2001), foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1991), foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991), foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (2001), honorary fellow of the London School of Economics (1995), honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (2010); honorary member of the American Economic Association (1997), and Andrew D White professor-at-large (2007–2013) at Cornell University. He is a past president of the Royal Economic Society (1998–2001) and the European Economic Association (1999).

Dasgupta was named Knight Bachelor by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in her Birthday Honours List in 2002 for "services to economics” and named Knight Grand Cross by King Charles III in the Near’s Honours List of 2023 for “services to economics and the natural environment”); was recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2014, the 2015 Blue Planet Prize for Scientific Achievement, the Kew International Medal 2021 of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and named a Champion of the Earth by the United Nations in 2023.