Joseph Stiglitz
Joseph Stiglitz
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, ForMemRS, FBA, is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciencesand the John Bates Clark Medal. He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and is a former member and chairman of theCouncil of Economic Advisers. He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, laissez-faire economists, and some international institutions like the International Monetary...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth9 February 1943
CountryUnited States of America
Joseph Stiglitz quotes about
My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me, an approach to learning which was later reinforced by my experiences at Amherst.
Certainly, the poverty, the discrimination, the episodic unemployment could not but strike an inquiring youngster: why did these exist, and what could we do about them.
The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged - debating - helped shape my interests in public policy.
In debate, one randomly was assigned to one side or the other. This had at least one virtue - it made one see that there was more than one side to these complex issues.
Much of my work in this period was concerned with exploring the logic of economic models, but also with attempting to reconcile the models with every day observation.
If stability and efficiency required that there existed markets that extended infinitely far into the future - and these markets clearly did not exist - what assurance do we have of the stability and efficiency of the capitalist system?
The notion that every well educated person would have a mastery of at least the basic elements of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences is a far cry from the specialized education that most students today receive, particularly in the research universities.
GDP tells you nothing about sustainability
I knew that discrimination existed, even though there were many individuals who were not prejudiced.
They [political leaders ] thought the only problem was the banking system, and if they fixed the banking system, all would be fine. But the banking system and the mortgage problem were symptomatic of some deeper problems, and evidently they still haven't recognized those deeper problems.
When I said "the pocket of the banks," it is not necessarily a mercenary relationship. It is a mindset.
The fact that the government had to put up hundreds of billions of dollars to Citibank in guarantees was a public declaration that Citibank was a mess. Making Citibank go through financial restructuring would not have conveyed any more different information. So it's very hard to see why it would have had that kind of a panic if it were done well.
Poverty is what we call the extremes at the bottom.
The question is whether it'll be a stable country, will it be a country in which a diversity of views, open transparency, women's rights are recognized. The likelihood of that remains very low.