Joseph Stiglitz

Nobel Prize in Economics.

"One of the 100 most influential people by Time magazine. Former World Bank Chief Economist. Bestselling Author. Economics Professor at Columbia University.

Joseph Stiglitz, BCC Conferenciantes

The world’s financial markets will rebound, but how do we ensure that the same mistakes aren’t made twice? Joseph Stiglitz explores the future of the world economy.

English
Economy · Government and Politics · Nobel prizes and other winners

Joseph Stiglitz offers an in-depth analysis of today’s economic climate without the patina of political or business motivation, often sacrificing popularity for principle. This internationally renowned economist provides audiences with historical context and real-time information that sheds light on the recent financial crisis-how it happened, and the path ahead. His insights are crucial for audiences that require a deeper understanding of the post-crisis business landscape. Stiglitz’ reputation precedes him as an engaging straight-talker.

 

In 2001, Joseph Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information, and Joseph Stiglitz was a lead author of the 1995 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2011, TIME named Stiglitz  «one of the 100 most influential people in the world».

 

Joseph Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-97. He then became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000. In 2008 he was asked by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy to chair the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.

In 2009 he was appointed by the President of the United Nations General Assembly as chair of the Commission of Experts on Reform of the International Financial and Monetary System, which also released its report in September 2009 (published as The Stiglitz Report). Since the crisis, he has played an important role in the creation of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), which seeks to reform the discipline so it is better equipped to find solutions for the great challenges of the 21st century.

He helped create a new branch of economics, “The Economics of Information,” exploring the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneering such pivotal concepts as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have now become standard tools not only of theorists, but also of policy analysts. In the last fifteen years, Joseph Stiglitz has written a series of highly popular books that have had an enormous influence in shaping global debates.

 

Stiglitz regularly appears on CNN, CNBC and FOX News. Additionally, he is a syndicated columnist and his op-eds and articles have appeared in The Financial Times, Vanity Fair and Newsweek, among others.

 

He is now University Professor at Columbia University in New York, where Joseph Stiglitz is also the founder and Co-President of the university’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue. He is also the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute.

A graduate of Amherst College, he received his PhD from MIT in 1967, became a full professor at Yale in 1970, and in 1979 was awarded the John Bates Clark Award, given biennially by the American Economic Association to the economist under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the field.

 

 

Conferences

The Fall: A Chronicle of the Financial Crisis.

The current financial crisis didn’t start with the housing bubble—it started with policies enacted by previous Presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan all the way through to President George W. Bush. Stiglitz explores how free market financial policy and government regulation, or lack thereof, led to the 2007 financial crisis. This fast-paced presentation includes an overview of the current state of the economy and also what businesses and financial institutions can expect during economic recovery.

I Dissent: Unconventional Economic Wisdom.

Joseph Stiglitz’ commentary on current United State economic policy and global financial news is controversial, provocative, and informative. It is also refreshingly direct. He provides audiences with solid context that can be used to add further dimensions to their work while gaining greater insight into the latest headlines.

Making Globalization Work

Based on his book by the same name, Joseph Stiglitz explores why globalization is failing so many people and what must be done create stable economies. This presentation specifically demonstrates the intersection between these key components: trade relationships, the gap between rich and poor, China/America, global warming and pollution, developing & emerging economies, and international governance/regulatory bodies.

The Price of Inequality

Based on his important (and controversial) new book, The Price of Inequality, Joseph Stiglitz speaks about the causes of inequality, the reasons it’s growing so rapidly, and its economic impacts. He explains that markets are neither efficient nor stable and tend to keep money in the hands of a few rather than create competition, in an overall system that benefits the rich over the rest of society.

He demonstrates how moving money from the middle and bottom of society to the top, far from stimulating entrepreneurship, actually produces slower growth and a lower GDP with even more instability. He concludes that redistributing wealth from the bottom up would produce far greater overall gains in our economies without adversely impacting financial elites.

The best-selling author of Globalization and Its Discontents, The Roaring Nineties, Making Globalization Work, and Freefall, Joseph Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001.

Books

Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump.

"Accessible, provocative, and highly readable." ―Alan Cowell, New York Times

In this crucial expansion and update of his landmark bestseller, renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz addresses globalization’s new discontents in the United States and Europe. Immediately upon publication, Globalization and Its Discontents became a touchstone in the globalization debate by demonstrating how the International Monetary Fund, other major institutions like the World Bank, and global trade agreements have often harmed the developing nations they are supposedly helping. Yet globalization today continues to be mismanaged, and now the harms―exemplified by the rampant inequality to which it has contributed―have come home to roost in the United States and the rest of the developed world as well, reflected in growing political unrest.

With a new introduction, major new chapters on the new discontents, the rise of Donald Trump, and the new protectionist movement, as well as a new afterword on the course of globalization since the book first appeared, Stiglitz’s powerful and prescient messages remain essential reading.

Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump.

The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future.

A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist.

America currently has the most inequality, and the least equality of opportunity, among the advanced countries. While market forces play a role in this stark picture, politics has shaped those market forces. In this best-selling book, Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz exposes the efforts of well-heeled interests to compound their wealth in ways that have stifled true, dynamic capitalism. Along the way he examines the effect of inequality on our economy, our democracy, and our system of justice. Stiglitz explains how inequality affects and is affected by every aspect of national policy, and with characteristic insight he offers a vision for a more just and prosperous future, supported by a concrete program to achieve that vision.

The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future.

Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity.

It’s time to rewrite the rules―to curb the runaway flow of wealth to the top one percent, to restore security and opportunity for the middle class, and to foster stronger growth rooted in broadly shared prosperity.

Inequality is a choice.

The United States bills itself as the land of opportunity, a place where anyone can achieve success and a better life through hard work and determination. But the facts tell a different story―the U.S. today lags behind most other developed nations in measures of inequality and economic mobility. For decades, wages have stagnated for the majority of workers while economic gains have disproportionately gone to the top one percent. Education, housing, and health care―essential ingredients for individual success―are growing ever more expensive. Deeply rooted structural discrimination continues to hold down women and people of color, and more than one-fifth of all American children now live in poverty. These trends are on track to become even worse in the future.

Some economists claim that today’s bleak conditions are inevitable consequences of market outcomes, globalization, and technological progress. If we want greater equality, they argue, we have to sacrifice growth. This is simply not true. American inequality is the result of misguided structural rules that actually constrict economic growth. We have stripped away worker protections and family support systems, created a tax system that rewards short-term gains over long-term investment, offered a de facto public safety net to too-big-to-fail financial institutions, and chosen monetary and fiscal policies that promote wealth over full employment.

Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity.

The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe.

When Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz posed this question in the original edition of The Euro, he lent much-needed clarity to a global debate that continues to this day. The euro was supposed to unify Europe and promote prosperity; in fact, it has done just the opposite. To save the European project, the euro may have to be abandoned. Since 2010, many of the 19 countries of Europe that share the euro currency―the eurozone―have been rocked by debt crises and mired in lasting stagnation, and the divergence between stronger and weaker economies has accelerated. In The Euro, Joseph E. Stiglitz explains precisely why the eurozone has performed so poorly, so different from the expectations at its launch: at the core of the failure is the structure of the eurozone itself, the rules by which it is governed. Stiglitz reveals three potential paths forward: drastic structural reforms, not of the individual countries, but of the eurozone; a well-managed dissolution of the euro; or a bold new system dubbed the “flexible euro.” With trenchant analysis―and brand new material on Brexit―The Euro is urgent and timely reading.

The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe.

The Great Divide.

How has America become the most unequal advanced country in the world, and what can we do about it?

In The Great Divide, Joseph E. Stiglitz expands on the diagnosis he offered in his best-selling book The Price of Inequality and suggests ways to counter America’s growing problem. With his signature blend of clarity and passion, Stiglitz argues that inequality is a choice—the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities.

Gathering his writings for popular outlets including Vanity Fair and the New York Times, Stiglitz exposes in full America's inequality: its dimensions, its causes, and its consequences for the nation and for the world. From Reagan-era to the Great Recession and its long aftermath, Stiglitz delves into the irresponsible policies—deregulation, tax cuts, and tax breaks for the 1 percent—that are leaving many Americans farther and farther beyond and turning the American dream into an ever more unachievable myth. With formidable yet accessible economic insight, he urges us to embrace real solutions: increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy; offering more help to the children of the poor; investing in education, science, and infrastructure; helping out homeowners instead of banks; and, most importantly, doing more to restore the economy to full employment. Stiglitz also draws lessons from Scandinavia, Singapore, and Japan, and he argues against the tide of unnecessary, destructive austerity that is sweeping across Europe.

Ultimately, Stiglitz believes our choice is not between growth and fairness; with the right policies, we can choose both. His complaint is not so much about capitalism as such, but how twenty-first-century capitalism has been perverted. His is a call to confront America's economic inequality as the political and moral issue that it is. If we reinvest in people and pursue the other policies that he describes, America can live up to the shared dream of a more prosperous, more equal society.

The Great Divide.

Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress.

It has long been recognized that an improved standard of living results from advances in technology, not from the accumulation of capital. It has also become clear that what truly separates developed from less-developed countries is not just a gap in resources or output but a gap in knowledge. In fact, the pace at which developing countries grow is largely a function of the pace at which they close that gap.

Thus, to understand how countries grow and develop, it is essential to know how they learn and become more productive and what government can do to promote learning. In Creating a Learning Society, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald cast light on the significance of this insight for economic theory and policy. Taking as a starting point Kenneth J. Arrow's 1962 paper "Learning by Doing," they explain why the production of knowledge differs from that of other goods and why market economies alone typically do not produce and transmit knowledge efficiently. Closing knowledge gaps and helping laggards learn are central to growth and development. But creating a learning society is equally crucial if we are to sustain improved living standards in advanced countries.

Combining accessible prose with technical economic analysis, Stiglitz and Greenwald provide new models of "endogenous growth," up-ending thowhe thinking about both domestic and global policy and trade regimes. They show well-designed government trade and industrial policies can help create a learning society, and how poorly designed intellectual property regimes can retard learning. They also explain how virtually every government policy has effects, both positive and negative, on learning, a fact that policymakers must recognize. They demonstrate why many standard policy prescriptions, especially those associated with "neoliberal" doctrines focusing on static resource allocations, have impeded learning. Among the provocative implications are that free trade may lead to stagnation whereas broad-based industrial protection and exchange rate interventions may bring benefits―not just to the industrial sector, but to the entire economy.

The volume concludes with brief commentaries from Philippe Aghion and Michael Woodford, as well as from Nobel Laureates Kenneth J. Arrow and Robert M. Solow.

Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress.

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.

The Great Recession, as it has come to be called, has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depression. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate behavior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The crisis has sparked an essential debate about America’s economic missteps, the soundness of this country’s economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist system.

Few are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Stiglitz. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is “an insanely great economist, in ways you can’t really appreciate unless you’re deep into the field” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). In Freefall, Stiglitz traces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answers and demolishing the contention that America needs more billion-dollar bailouts and free passes to those “too big to fail,” while also outlining the alternatives and revealing that even now there are choices ahead that can make a difference. The system is broken, and we can only fix it by examining the underlying theories that have led us into this new “bubble capitalism.”

Ranging across a host of topics that bear on the crisis, Stiglitz argues convincingly for a restoration of the balance between government and markets. America as a nation faces huge challenges―in health care, energy, the environment, education, and manufacturing―and Stiglitz penetratingly addresses each in light of the newly emerging global economic order. An ongoing war of ideas over the most effective type of capitalist system, as well as a rebalancing of global economic power, is shaping that order. The battle may finally give the lie to theories of a “rational” market or to the view that America’s global economic dominance is inevitable and unassailable.

For anyone watching with indignation while a reckless Wall Street destroyed homes, educations, and jobs; while the government took half-steps hoping for a “just-enough” recovery; and while bankers fell all over themselves claiming not to have seen what was coming, then sought government bailouts while resisting regulation that would make future crises less likely, Freefall offers a clear accounting of why so many Americans feel disillusioned today and how we can realize a prosperous economy and a moral society for the future.

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.

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