Joseph Stiglitz
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (/ˈstɪɡlɪts/; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist,[2] a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001)[3] and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979).[4] He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is also a former member and chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers.[5][6] He is known for his support for the Georgist public finance theory[7][8][9] and for his critical view of the management of globalization, of laissez-faire economists (whom he calls "free-market fundamentalists"), and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
"Stiglitz" redirects here. For other uses, see Stiglitz (disambiguation).
Joseph Stiglitz
Jane Hannaway (div.)
In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 2001, and received the university's highest academic rank (university professor) in 2003. He was the founding chair of the university's Committee on Global Thought. He also chairs the University of Manchester's Brooks World Poverty Institute. He was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In 2009, the President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, appointed Stiglitz as the chairman of the U.N. Commission on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, where he oversaw suggested proposals and commissioned a report on reforming the international monetary and financial system.[10] He served as the chair of the international Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, appointed by the French President Sarkozy, which issued its report in 2010, Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP doesn't add up,[11] and currently serves as co-chair of its successor, the High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. From 2011 to 2014, Stiglitz was the president of the International Economic Association (IEA).[12] He presided over the organization of the IEA triennial world congress held near the Dead Sea in Jordan in June 2014.[13]
In 2011, Stiglitz was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world[14] by the Time magazine. Stiglitz's work focuses on income distribution from a Georgist perspective, asset risk management, corporate governance, and international trade. He is the author of several books, the latest being People, Power, and Profits (2019), The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe (2016), The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them (2015), Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity (2015), and Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth Development and Social Progress (2014).[15] He is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.[16] According to the Open Syllabus Project, Stiglitz is the fifth most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses.[17]
Economic views[edit]
Market efficiency[edit]
For Stiglitz, there is no such thing as an invisible hand, in the sense that free markets lead to efficiency as if guided by unseen forces.[77] According to Stiglitz:[78]
Papers and conferences[edit]
Stiglitz wrote a series of papers and held a series of conferences explaining how such information uncertainties may have influence on everything from unemployment to lending shortages. As the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the first term of the Clinton Administration and former chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz was able to put some of his views into action. For example, he was an outspoken critic of quickly opening up financial markets in developing countries. These markets rely on access to good financial data and sound bankruptcy laws, but he argued that many of these countries did not have the regulatory institutions needed to ensure that the markets would operate soundly.
In July 2020, Stiglitz alongside Hamid Rashid, the chief of Global Economic Monitoring at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, published a report, pointing out that the quantitative easing policy implemented by the US after the 2008 financial crisis, had "basically exported a debt bubble to developing countries".[127][128]
Awards and honors[edit]
In addition to being awarded the Nobel Memorial prize, Stiglitz has over 40 honorary doctorates and at least eight honorary professorships as well as an honorary deanship.[129][130][131]
Stiglitz was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983,[132] the National Academy of Sciences in 1988,[133] and the American Philosophical Society in 1997.[134]
In 2009, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Tutu at an awards ceremony at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa.[135][136]
He received the 2010 Gerald Loeb Awards for Commentary for "Capitalist Fools and Wall Street's Toxic Message".[137]
In 2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine on its list of top global thinkers.[138] In February 2012, he was awarded the Legion of Honor, in the rank of Officer, by the French ambassador in the United States François Delattre.[139] Stiglitz was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2009.[140] Stiglitz was awarded the 2018 Sydney Peace Prize.[141]
Personal life[edit]
Stiglitz married Jane Hannaway in 1978 but the couple later divorced.[142][143] He married for the third time on October 28, 2004, to Anya Schiffrin, who works at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.[144] He has four children and three grandchildren.