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
The question is whether some of the fears of last year will be realized this year. There is strong reason to worry.
The protesters have called into question whether there is a real democracy. Real democracy is more than the right to vote once every two or four years. The choices have to be meaningful. But increasingly, and especially in the US, it seems that the political system is more akin to "one dollar one vote" than to "one person one vote". Rather than correcting the market failures, the political system was reinforcing them.
Climate change is a reality.
I, like many members of my generation, was concerned with segregation and the repeated violation of civil rights.
The US economy has lots of vulnerabilities in debts and deficits.
Elderly people remember when they could go to the movie for a nickel or a quarter,
You can increase the price from 25 to 40 dollars, and people can absorb it. If the price rises above 60 dollars, they become unhappy. They start to adjust, they move to smaller cars, drive a little bit less.
So the theory asks, how can shareholders ascertain what the firm's real prospects are when they have less information, ... It's a pervasive aspect of modern economies.
An example might be, when the owner of the firm knows more than the shareholders.
Asia has become the source of finance, the source of savings. It now has the human capital to manage that well. Why doesn't it take the advantage of that opportunity to try and create financial markets that work better for the people of Asia.
Anybody looking at these models would say they can't provide a good description of the modern world.
One needs to find innovative ways to transfer and absorb risks better within Asia, better ways of managing Asian financial markets.
China's growth has been export-based, but it may be difficult for it to sustain the pace of export growth.
China has been selling a lot of goods to the West, particularly to the US, but at the same time it has been providing the money to provide the goods.