Joseph Stiglitz


Joseph StiglitzJoseph Stiglitz is University Professor, Columbia University, where he is also the founder and Co-President of the university's Initiative for Policy Dialogue, and a member and former chair of its Committee on Global Thought. He has taught at Princeton, Stanford, MIT and was the Drummond Professor and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He served on the 1995 IPCC Assessment Panel, Chaired President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, and was Chief Economist of the World Bank. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2001, and in 1979 was awarded the John Bates Clark Award. He is the author of the global bestseller, Globalization and its Discontents. His most recent books are The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future, published by W.W. Norton and Penguin/ Allen Lane in June 2012, and Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress, with Bruce Greenwald, published by Columbia University Press in 2014. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Econometric Society, and a corresponding fellow of the Royal Society and the British Academy. In 2011, Time named Stiglitz one of the 100 most influential people in the world.




Papers Published in World Economics:


Taking Stock of Microfinance

This paper explores the current global turmoil in microfinance in the context of the problems that have arisen at SKS Microfinance in India. The authors argue that the roots of the current crisis lay in the attempt to scale-up the original “Grameen” model of microfinance set up in Bangladesh I order to establish profit-seeking bodies which have neglected the core value of trust underlying successful initiatives. Unfortunately, corrective steps may exacerbate existing problems. The founders of microfinance may have overestimated the impact of microfinance in abolishing poverty, but the hasty regulation that has been imposed to address some of the setbacks experienced in India, may only undermine further trust between borrowers and lenders. Undoubtedly, microfinance institutions have has an impact on economic exclusion, social change and on community building, but future growth in the sector may require a reversion to its original not for profit foundation.

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Redefining the Role of the State
Author: An interview with introduction by Brian Snowdon

An interview with introduction by Brian Snowdon
Professor Joseph Stiglitz is without question one of the world’s leading economists. In his extensive research he has made seminal contributions to the analysis of the economic consequences of incomplete information and uncertainty. This work has greatly enhanced economists’ understanding of the welfare properties of markets and the sources of market failure. His research has also contributed to the development of better microeconomic foundations for Keynesian macroeconomic models. Most recently Professor Stiglitz has been heavily involved in controversial public policy debates relating to the East Asian crisis, problems of transition from communism to capitalism, the limitations of the ‘Washington consensus’, and globalisation and development. A common theme in all of these debates relates to the role of government and legitimate borders of the state in both developed and developing economies. In this article/interview Professor Stiglitz gives his views on these and several other important global issues.

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