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Joseph Stiglitz
67 quotes
“Most poor people earn more than minimum wage when they are working; their problem is not low wages. The problem comes when they are not working.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Economics (1993).
“The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Daniel Altman, "Managing Globalization: Q & A with Joseph Stiglitz", The International Herald Tribune (2006-10-11).
“They [free market policies] were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of these policies were being pushed, academic economists were explaining the limitations of markets — for instance, whenever information is imperfect, which is to say always.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bleakonomics" The New York Times Sunday Book Review (2007-09-30).
“It's actually a tribute to the quality of economics teaching that they have persuaded so many generations of students to believe in so much that seems so counter to what the world is like. Many of the things that I'm going to describe make so much more common sense than these notions that seem counter to what ones eyes see every day.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nobel Prize Lecture" Information and the Change in the Paradigm in Economics, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University, (2001-12-08).
“The fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Nathan Gardels, The Huffington Post, September 16th 2008
“The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%", Vanity Fair, May 2011.
“And it should be clear that, in spite of the increases in GDP, in spite of the 2008 crisis being well behind us, everything is not fine. We see this in the political discontent rippling through so many advanced countries; we see it in the widespread support of demagogues, whose successes depend on exploiting economic discontent; and we see it in the environment around us, where fires rage and floods and droughts occur at ever-increasing intervals.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: It's time to retire metrics like GDP. They don't measure everything that matters", The Guardian, November 2019
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The end of neoliberalism and the rebirth of history", Social Europe, November 2019
“The standard neoclassical model the formal articulation of Adam Smith's invisible hand, the contention that market economies will ensure economic efficiency provides little guidance for the choice of economic systems, since once information imperfections (and the fact that markets are incomplete) are brought into the analysis, as surely they must be, there is no presumption that markets are efficient.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Lange-Lerner-Taylor theorem, asserting the equivalence of market and market socialist economies, is based on a misguided view of the market, of the central problems of resource allocation, and (not surprisingly, given the first two failures) of how the market addresses those basic problems.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The neoclassical paradigm, through its incorrect characterization of the market economies and the central problems of resource allocation, provides a false sense of belief in the ability of market socialism to solve those resource allocation problems. To put it another way, if the neoclassical paradigm had provided a good description of the resource allocation problem and the market mechanism, then market socialism might well have been a success. The very criticisms of market socialism are themselves, to a large extent, criticisms of the neoclassical paradigm.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Competition is limited by the scale of the market, and as the scale of the market has changed, so has the effectiveness of competition.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The theory of market socialism, for the most part, was not based on an analysis of these market failures, and of the reasons why government might be able to resolve them, but rather on the naive comparison of the actual performance of market economies and the hypothesized performance of a market socialist economy with an idealized view of government. This idealization not only failed to take into account the political realities, but more important from the perspective of this chapter, failed to take into account essential economic realities.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We need to distinguish between incentives at the organizational level and at the individual level, though some of the problems in designing incentive structures are common to both. We need to ask how, for the kinds of activities the public sector engages in, the organization is rewarded for "success" or punished for lack of it, and how individuals are similarly rewarded and punished.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thus the first objective of state economic policy is to ensure competition. This needs to be taken into account in the process of privatization or reorganizing state enterprises, as well as in the laws allowing the formation of firms, cooperatives, and partnerships. The government must take actions to minimize the barriers to entry.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An essential commitment, which virtually all observers have emphasized, is not to subsidize enterprises that are making losses. While the standard remedy for this is "privatization," it should be recognized that this is neither necessary nor sufficient for imposing hard budget constraints. Governments in many countries have subsidized private producers (e.g., of steel), and governments in some countries have imposed hard budget constraints on government enterprises.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Privatization is, at best, only a partial solution. Privatizations in which vouchers are given, and there is not a recapitalization, do not address this problem at all. Privatizations in which the firm is sold are likely, in the presence of limited competition for the firm, to provide an underestimate of the true value of the firm's assets. Accordingly good performance, based on this undervaluation of the firm's assets, does not provide a true measure of the firm's efficiency.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I argued earlier, I view competition as far more important than privatization.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By changing the locus of caring and responsibility from the individual to the government not only for the needy, but for oneself, one's parents, one's children we change society and we change ourselves. Here again we see a certain irony: Attempts to improve society by having the government undertake a greater role in redistribution, may ultimately through their effects on individuals and the nature of the social contract have more ambiguous consequences.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The answer that socialism provided to the age-old question of the proper balance between the public and the private can now, from our current historical perspective, be seen to have been wrong. But if it was based on wrong, or at least incomplete, economic theories, theories that are quickly passing into history, it was also based on ideals and values many of which are eternal. It represented a quest for a more humane and a more egalitarian society.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In debate, one randomly was assigned to one side or the other. This had at least one virtue — it made one see that there was more than one side to these complex issues.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The notion that every well educated person would have a mastery of at least the basic elements of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences is a far cry from the specialized education that most students today receive, particularly in the research universities.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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).”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If stability and efficiency required that there existed markets that extended infinitely far into the future — and these markets clearly did not exist — what assurance do we have of the stability and efficiency of the capitalist system?”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An early insight in my work on the economics of information concerned the problem of appropriability — the difficulty that those who pay for information have in getting returns.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I recognized that information was, in many respects, like a public good, and it was this insight that made it clear to me that it was unlikely that the private market would provide efficient resource allocations whenever information was endogenous.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Seeing an economy that is, in many ways, quite different from the one grows up in, helps crystallize issues: in one's own environment, one takes too much for granted, without asking why things are the way they are.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Instead, unchecked by competition [by the USSR] to "win the heart and minds" of those in the Third World, the advanced industrial countries actually created a global trade regime that helped their special corporate and financial interests, and hurt the poorest countries of the world.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was at the World Bank, it would often be said in the face of obvious failure that our strategy was correct, it just wasn't implemented well.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The United States and Europe have perfected the art of arguing for free trade while simultaneously working for trade agreements that protect themselves against imports from developing countries. [...] Western negotiators almost take it for granted that they can control what gets discussed, and determine the outcomes.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the reasons that basic research is advanced most by not resorting to intellectual property is that while doing so would have questionable benefits, the costs are apparent. [...] Interestingly, even in software, this system of open collaboration has worked. Today we have the Linux computer operating system, which is also based on the principle of open architecture.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Intellectual property does not really belong in a trade agreement.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The job of the Western trade negotiators is to get a better trade deal for their country's interests—for example, gaining more market access and stronger intellectual property rights—without giving up agriculture subsidies or nontariff trade barriers. Fairness is not in the lexicon of these trade negotiators.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have argued that simply as a matter of fairness in trade, it is intolerable for one country to provide, in effect, emission subsidies to its firms. [...] Europe must use the foundations of the international trade law we have created to force any recalcitrant country, any rogue state—including the United States—to behave responsibly.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps the most successful global monopoly is Microsoft, which has succeeded in gaining global market power not only in PC operating systems but in key applications such as browsers. [...] Microsoft's monopoly power leads not only to higher prices but to less innovation. [...] The failure to develop a global approach to global cartels and monopolies is yet another instance of economic globalization outpacing political globalization.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Joseph Stiglitz (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source