Joseph Stiglitz quotes - page 2

America's role in the global economy inevitably was going to diminish; we're smaller relative to - as China, India, other emerging markets grow. (Joseph Stiglitz)
I knew that discrimination existed, even though there were many individuals who were not prejudiced. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
The problem is easy to state: developing countries borrow too much-or are lent too much-and in ways that force them to bear most or all of the risk of subsequent increases in interest rates, fluctuations in the exchange rate, or decreases in income. Given this, it is not surprising that they often cannot repay what is owed. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
Limited liability should not be sacrosanct. Like property rights-including intellectual property-it is a creation of man, to provide appropriate incentives; when that artifice fails to fulfill its social function, it needs to be modified. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
Innovation is important; it has transformed the lives of everyone in the world. And intellectual property laws can and should play a role in stimulating innovation. However, the contention that stronger intellectual property rights always boost economic performance is not in general correct. It is an example of how special interests-those who benefit from stronger intellectual property rights-use simplistic ideology to advance their causes. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
New technologies (reinforced by new trade rules) are enhancing the market power of incumbent, dominant firms, such as Microsoft, which are all from the developed world; for the first time, in a key global industry, there is a near-global monopolist. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
Today, as we face a retreat from the rules-based, liberal global order, with autocratic rulers and demagogues leading countries that contain well over half the world's population, Fukuyama's idea seems quaint and naive. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
There must have been something in the air of Gary that led one into economics: the first Nobel Prize winner, Paul Samuelson, was also from Gary, as were several other distinguished economists... 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. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
Once I undertook the analysis of a problem, I often looked at it from a variety of perspectives. I approached the problem as a series of thought experiments - unlike many other sciences, we typically cannot do actual experiments. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
The best teachers still taught in a Socratic style, asking questions, responding to the answers with still another question. And in all of our courses, we were taught that what mattered most was asking the right question - having posed the question well, answering the question was often a relatively easy matter. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
There is little doubt that the observation that quality may depend on price (productivity on wages; default probability on interest rates) has provided a rich mine for economic theorists: A simple modification of the basic assumptions results in a profound alteration of many of the basic conclusions of the standard paradigm. The Law of Supply and Demand has been repealed. The Law of the Single Price has been repealed. The Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics has been shown not to be valid. More than that, the theories that we describe here provide the basis of progress toward a unification of macroeconomics and microeconomics. They pro vide an explanation of unemployment and credit rationing, derived from basic microeconomic principles. It is a theory in which the extensive idleness that periodically confronts society's resources, human and capital, is seen as but the most obvious example of market failures that prevasively and persistently distort the allocation of resources. (Joseph Stiglitz)
The theories that I (and others) helped develop explained why unfettered markets often not only do not lead to social justice, but do not even produce efficient outcomes. Interestingly, there has been no intellectual challenge to the refutation of Adam Smith's invisible hand: individuals and firms, in the pursuit of their self-interest, are not necessarily, or in general, led as if by an invisible hand, to economic efficiency. The only question that has been raised concerns the ability of government to remedy the deficiencies of the market. Within academia, a significant fraction of economists are involved with developing and expanding on the ideas of imperfect information (and imperfect markets) that I explored. For instance, Edmund Phelps, this year's Nobel Prize winner, belongs to this "school" of thought. But in political discourse, simplistic "market fundamentalism” continues to exert enormous influence. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
I, like many members of my generation, was concerned with segregation and the repeated violation of civil rights. We were impatient with those (like President Kennedy) who took a cautious approach. How could we continue to countenance these injustices that had gone on so long? (The fact that so many people in the establishment seemed to do so - as they had accepted colonialism, slavery, and other forms of oppression - left a life-long mark. It reinforced a distrust of authority which I had had from childhood). View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
There was an incongruity between many of the models that we were taught and the policy positions that our teachers (and we) believed in. The models seemed more consonant with free market prescriptions, though they were presented more as benchmarks rather than full characterizations. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
Growing up in Gary Indiana gave me, I think, a distinct advantage over many of my classmates who had grown up in affluent suburbs. They could read articles that argued that in competitive equilibrium, there could not be discrimination, so long as there are some non-discriminatory individuals or firms, since it would pay any such firm to hire the lower wage discriminated-against individuals, and take them seriously. I knew that discrimination existed, even though there were many individuals who were not prejudiced. To me, the theorem simply proved that one or more of the assumptions that went into the theory was wrong. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
In part, free trade has not worked because we have not tried it: trade agreements of the past have been neither free nor fair. They have been asymmetric, opening up markets in the developing countries to goods from the advanced industrial countries without full reciprocation. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
The era of multilateral trade liberalization seems to be nearing an end (at least for a while), as well-founded disillusionment in the developing countries combines with growing protectionist sentiment in the developed world. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
If there is to be support for trade globalization in the developed world, we must make sure that the benefits and costs are more evenly shared, which will entail more progressive income taxation. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
TRIPs imposed on the entire world the dominant intellectual property regime in the United States and Europe, as it is today. I believe that the way that intellectual property regime has evolved is not good for the United States and the EU; but even more, I believe it is not in the interest of the developing countries. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
The natural resource curse is not fate; it is choice. The exploitation of natural resources is an important part of globalization today, and in some ways the failures of the resource-rich developing countries are emblematic of globalization's failures. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
Climate change poses an existential threat to the planet that is no less dire than that posed by North Korea's nuclear ambitions. (Joseph Stiglitz)
But individuals and firms spend an enormous amount of resources acquiring information, which affects their beliefs; and actions of others too affect their beliefs. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
Trump will fail even in his proclaimed goal of reducing the trade deficit, which is determined by the disparity between domestic savings and investment. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
There must have been something in the air of Gary that led one into economics: the first Nobel Prize winner, Paul Samuelson, was also from Gary, as were several other distinguished economists. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz
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. View quote
Joseph Stiglitz