Background

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz was born on February 9, 1943, in Gary, Indiana, United States to the family of an insurance salesman Nathaniel David Stiglitz and a schoolteacher Charlotte Fishman. During Stiglitz’s growing up years, intense political debate was part of their family life. This might have given rise to his interest in politics, which was further nurtured during his college days.

Nathaniel Stiglitz had a great influence on young Joseph. He often spoke about the virtues of self-reliance and was a strong advocate of civil rights. He had a very deep sense of moral responsibility and insisted on paying social security contributions for domestic help, even though they never asked for it.

Education

Joseph Stiglitz had his schooling under the public education system in Gary. Classes were quite large there; in spite of that, his teachers managed to provide individual attention. Here, apart from studying the usual curricula, Stiglitz had to learn printing and electrical work. During these days, he keenly took part in school debates. Every year a national topic was chosen and they were randomly assigned to one side or other. Taking part in such debates, he realized, early in his life, that each issue can have multiple sides.

Joseph Stiglitz studied at Amherst College graduating as a Bachelor of Arts in 1964. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967.

Career

In 1966, Joseph Stiglitz took up a one-year appointment as an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thereafter in 1967, he joined Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University as an Assistant Professor. In 1968, he was promoted to the post of Associate Professor, a position he held until 1970. Meanwhile, in 1966, he received a Tapp Junior Research Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. Therefore, from then until 1970, he had to commute to and from Cambridge regularly. In 1970, Stiglitz was promoted once more. He now became a Professor of Economics at the Cowles Foundation and Department of Economics, Yale University, a position he held until 1974. Concurrently, from 1969 to 1971, he was the Senior Research Fellow, Social Science Division, Institute for Development Studies, University College, Nairobi under Rockefeller Foundation Grant. From 1973 to 1974, he was a Visiting Fellow at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. In 1974, he joined Stanford University as Professor of Economics, holding the position till 1976. Thereafter from 1976 to 1979, he was the Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University. From 1979 to 1988, he served as the Professor of Economics at Princeton University. Later from 1988 to 2001, he was the Professor of Economics and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. In 2001, Stiglitz was appointed a Professor of Economics at the Business School, the Department of Economics and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He received the university's highest academic rank (university professor) in 2003, a position he holds till now. Along with that, he functions as the Chairperson of many important committees.

Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-1995, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-1997. 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, which released its final report in September 2009 (published as Mismeasuring Our Lives). He now chairs a High-Level Expert Group at the OECD attempting to further advance these ideas. 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 2008 financial 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 to the great challenges of the 21st century.

Stiglitz serves on numerous boards, including the Acumen Fund and Resources for the Future.

Stiglitz 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 of policy analysts. He has made major contributions to macroeconomics and monetary theory, development economics and trade theory, public and corporate finance, theories of industrial organization and rural organization, and theories of welfare economics and income and wealth distribution. In the 1980s, he helped revive interest in the economics of R&D.

Stiglitz's work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve their performance.

Recognized around the world as a leading economic educator, Stiglitz has written textbooks that have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His book Globalization and Its Discontents (W.W. Norton, 2001) was translated into 35 languages and sold more than one million copies worldwide. His other books include The Roaring Nineties (W.W. Norton, 2003); Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics, with Bruce Greenwald (Cambridge University Press, 2003); Fair Trade for All, with Andrew Charlton (Oxford University Press, 2005); Making Globalization Work (W.W. Norton and Penguin/Allen Lane, 2006); The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, with Linda Bilmes of Harvard University (W.W. Norton and Penguin/ Allen Lane, 2008); and Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy (W.W. Norton and Penguin/Allen Lane, 2010).

Stiglitz's most recent books are The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future (W.W. Norton and Penguin/Allen Lane, 2012); Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress, with Bruce Greenwald (Columbia University Press, 2014); The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them (W.W. Norton and Penguin/Allen Lane, 2015); Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity (W.W. Norton, 2015); and The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe (W.W. Norton and Penguin/Allen Lane, 2016).

Achievements

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  Joseph Stiglitz is recognized around the world as a leading economic educator. 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. He is also the Co-Founder and Co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia and Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information, and he 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.
  
  Stiglitz has received more than 40 honorary degrees, including from Cambridge and Harvard, and he has been decorated by several governments including Bolivia, Korea, Colombia, Ecuador, and most recently France, where he was made the Officer of the Legion of Honor.

Works

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• book

  • Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn't Add Up

    (In February of 2008, amid the looming global financial cr...)

    2010
  • 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...)

    2015
  • Lectures on Public Economics

    (The definitive textbook on public finance - now back in p...)

    2015
  • Selected Works of Joseph E. Stiglitz: Volume I: Information and Economic Analysis

    (This is the first volume in a new, definitive, six-volume...)

    2008
  • Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress

    (Since its publication Creating a Learning Society has ser...)

    2015
  • Life After Debt: The Origins and Resolutions of Debt Crisis

    (This volume provides a pluralistic discussion from world-...)

    2014
  • The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis

    (The fact that our global economy is broken may be widely ...)

    2010
  • Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development

    (Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of the ...)

    2009
  • Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

    (An incisive look at the global economic crisis, our flawe...)

    2010
  • The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict

    (The true cost of the Iraq War is $3 trillion - and counti...)

    2008
  • Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics

    (Towards a New Paradigm for Monetary Economics presents a ...)

    1991
  • Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump

    (In this crucial expansion and update of his landmark best...)

    2017
  • The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future

    (America currently has the most inequality, and the least ...)

    2012
  • Towards a General Theory of Deep Downturns: Presidential Address from the 17th World Congress of the International Economic Association in 2014

    (Joseph Stiglitz examines the theory behind the economic d...)

    2014
  • Whither Socialism?

    (The rapid collapse of socialism has raised new economic p...)

    1996
  • Principles of Microeconomics

    (Principles of Microeconomics has been thoroughly revised,...)

    2010
  • People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent

    (A Nobel prize winner challenges us to throw off the free-...)

    2019
  • An Agenda for the Development Round of Trade Negotiations in the Aftermath of Cancun

    ("It is an Advanced Industrial Country Round of what they ...)

    2004
  • Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity

    (A companion to his acclaimed work in Rewriting the Rules ...)

    2020
  • The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World's Most Prosperous Decade

    (How one of the greatest economic expansions in history so...)

    2011
  • Economics

    (Economics has been thoroughly revised, simplified, and up...)

    2009
  • Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being

    (In 2009, a group of economists led by Nobel laureate Jose...)

    2019
  • The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them

    (In the face of rising inequality in America, Joseph E. St...)

    2015
  • The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe

    (When Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz pos...)

    2016
  • Making Globalization Work

    (Joseph E. Stiglitz offers here an agenda of inventive sol...)

    2007
  • Economics of the public sector 1986
  • The Economic Role of the State 1989
  • The Economists' Voice: Top Economists Take On Today's Problems 2011
  • Economics and the Canadian Economy 1994
  • State versus market: Have Asian currency crises affected the reform debate? 1999

Religion

Stiglitz calls himself Agnostic but says he had a very strong religious upbringing.

Politics

Stiglitz joined the Clinton Administration in 1993, serving first as a member during 1993-1995, and was then appointed Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers on June 28, 1995, in which capacity he also served as a member of the cabinet. He became deeply involved in environmental issues, which included serving on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and helping draft a new law for toxic wastes (which was never passed).

In July 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, with support of the Ford, Rockefeller, McArthur, and Mott Foundations and the Canadian and Swedish governments, to enhance democratic processes for decision-making in developing countries and to ensure that a broader range of alternatives are on the table and more stakeholders are at the table.

Views

Stiglitz’s list of honors, awards, and achievements is staggering, but as a New Keynesian economist, the arc of his writings and teachings focus on microeconomic phenomena that can provide a basis for some of the macroeconomic theories developed by Keynesian economics. The implications of his research and the content of his popular writing talk about how government regulation of financial and corporate objectives is essential to a free, fair, and prosperous society.

Stiglitz's most highly recognized contributions are in the area of information asymmetry. His work on this subject is a major component of his New Keynesian research program, in that it explores various ways in which imperfections in information shared between market participants can lead markets to fail to reach efficient, competitive outcomes. These can include insurance markets, where insurers can use various screening methods to sort the market by consumer type; financial asset markets, where even small information costs can allow widespread free-riding on those who acquire and use information by investor; and labor markets, where principal-agent relationships between employers and employees can lead to above-market-clearing wages that are efficient for both groups but increase overall unemployment.

Some of Stiglitz's early work focused on the concept of risk aversion, which is when people attempt to lower their exposure to uncertainty. His work in this area contributed to the theoretical definition of risk aversion and the logical consequences of risk aversion to subjects, such as individual savings, portfolio investment, and business production decisions.

Stiglitz helped to create the theory of monopolistic competition, which tries to account for competitive markets where firms and products can be differentiated from one another. In monopolistic competition, things like advertising, branding, and product differentiation can contribute to barriers to entry for new firms, which violates the assumptions of perfect competition and can prevent the market from achieving an economically efficient outcome.

Some of Stiglitz's work is based on the ideas of 19th-century economist Henry George. George famously advocated the application of a single tax, based on the unimproved value of privately owned land to finance all government. Stiglitz mathematically formalized George’s idea to show that because land buyers compete to obtain public goods by obtaining land toward which public goods are directed, the market value of land will reflect the value of public goods and that a single tax on land values can provide the optimal quantity of public goods demanded by the market.

Quotations: "The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there."

"The fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism."

"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."

"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."

Membership

Joseph Stiglitz is a member of the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Real Academia de Ciencias Económicas y Financieras, the Club of Rome, and the Econometric Society.

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  Royal Society , United Kingdom

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  National Academy of Sciences , United States

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  Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences , Vatican

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  European Academy of Sciences and Arts

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  British Academy , United Kingdom

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  American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

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  Russian Academy of Sciences , Russia

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  American Philosophical Society , United States

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  Real Academia de Ciencias Económicas y Financieras , Spain

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  Club of Rome

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  Econometric Society

Personality

Joseph Stiglitz can be characterized by a critical mindset that has become an important resource for his research.

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  John Maynard Keynes, Robert Solow, James Mirrlees, Henry George

Connections

Joseph E. Stiglitz married three times. Nothing is known about his first wife or the first marriage, except that he has two children, Siobhan and Michael Stiglitz from his marriage and that it ended in a divorce. On 23 December 1978, he married Dr. Jane Hannaway, who at that time was an assistant Professor of Administration at Teachers College of Columbia. They had two children, Edward (Jed) and Julia Stiglitz. This marriage too ended in a divorce. On October 28, 2004, Stiglitz married Anya Schiffrin, the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and a lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Father:

Nathaniel David Stiglitz

Mother:

Charlotte Fishman

Daughter:

Siobhan Stiglitz

Son:

Michael Stiglitz

ex-wife:

Jane Hannaway

Son:

Edward Stiglitz

Daughter:

Julia Stiglitz

co-author:

Paul Krugman

References

• Economics for an Imperfect World: Essays in Honor of Joseph E. Stiglitz
  2003
• The public sector in Canada: A Canadian supplement to Joseph Stiglitz's Economics of the public sector
  1994