Kate Raworth

Kate Raworth: Doughnut Economics and Thriving Within Planetary Limits

Kate Raworth is an economist and author known for creating the Doughnut model of social and planetary boundaries. Her career has included work with the United Nations Development Programme and Oxfam, alongside teaching at Oxford. She is a cofounder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab.

In Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Raworth reconsiders the goals and assumptions of economic thinking. Her model brings together a social foundation of essential human needs and an ecological ceiling reflecting the limits of Earth’s life-supporting systems. The space between them represents the conditions in which people can thrive.

Raworth’s work connects economic ideas with the practical choices facing communities, businesses, and cities. She asks readers to think beyond growth as the primary measure of success and to consider distribution, regeneration, and interdependence. Her writing offers a framework for discussing what a healthy economy should make possible for people and the planet.