Joseph Stiglitz Quotes & Sayings

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

But individuals and firms spend an enormous amount of resources acquiring information, which affects their beliefs; and actions of others too affect their beliefs. — Joseph Stiglitz

Wall Street banks have used the same tactic that Bush used in the war on terror - fear - and they've basically said that if you don't do what we tell you, the sky will fall. If you don't do what we tell you, it will be the end of capitalism as we know it. The failure of Lehman Brothers lent some credence to those fears. — Joseph Stiglitz

Climate change is a reality. — Joseph Stiglitz

For that to happen, growth has to be very strong. To get back to normalcy, we will have to have extended growth of more than 3 percent. That's not in the cards. — Joseph Stiglitz

Temporary nationalization of the banks that are in very bad shape would mean basically that the government is the temporary owner. I always believe that the government should focus on its comparative advantages, and banking is not one of them. It should, therefore, if it nationalizes banks, sell them back to the private sector. — Joseph Stiglitz

The only surprise about the economic crisis of 2008 was that it came as a surprise to so many. — Joseph Stiglitz

The problem is a lot of what is called economics is not economics. It is more ideology or religion. — Joseph Stiglitz

You can't overestimate what happens when you encourage regulators to believe that the goal of regulation is not to regulate. — Joseph Stiglitz

The only people benefiting in Iraq war are George Bush's Jr. friends in the oil industry. He has done the American economy and the global economy an enormous disfavor, but his Texan friends couldn't be happier. — Joseph Stiglitz

World War II was really unusual, because America was in the Great Depression before. So the war did help the US economy to get securely out of this decline. This time, the war [in Iraq] is bad for the economy in both the short and long run. We could have spent trillions in research or education instead. This would have led to future productivity increases. — Joseph Stiglitz

Amherst was pivotal in my broad intellectual development; MIT in my development as a professional economist. — Joseph Stiglitz

There is a growing consensus that the European systems have worked better than the American: They have been able to deliver better health care to more people at lower cost. — Joseph Stiglitz

Unfettered market American-style capitalism doesn't work. Developing countries can't afford that kind of luxury. They just can't afford it. Period. If there's a mistake, they can't afford to put out $2 trillion. — Joseph Stiglitz

But while I loved all of these courses, there was an irresistible attraction of economics. — Joseph Stiglitz

The Bush administration has been doing everything it can to hide the huge number of returning veterans who are severely wounded - - 17,000 so far including roughly 20 percent with serious brain and head injuries. Even the estimate of $500 billion ignores the lifetime disability and healthcare costs that taxpayers will have to spend for years to come. — Joseph Stiglitz

Drug companies spend more on advertising and marketing than on research, more on research on lifestyle drugs than on life saving drugs, and almost nothing on diseases that affect developing countries only. This is not surprising. Poor people cannot afford drugs, and drug companies make investments that yield the highest returns. — Joseph Stiglitz

Poverty is what we call the extremes at the bottom. — Joseph Stiglitz

The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in any of the other advanced industrial countries. — Joseph Stiglitz

You saw on your TV what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The Reserves or National Guard are usually the people we use for those national emergencies. They weren't here, they were over in Iraq, and so we were less protected. — Joseph Stiglitz

One has to always ask the question: Where can one be most effective in helping shape policies? It is always difficult when you're inside because you're very constrained. — Joseph Stiglitz

What you measure affects what you do. If you don't measure the right thing, you don't do the right thing. — Joseph Stiglitz

In developing countries, lack of infrastructure is a far more serious barrier to trade than tariffs. — 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. — Joseph Stiglitz

I understand why political leaders in the beginning want to be cheerleaders to generate optimism. But to admit that they didn't understand the depths of the problem afterwards, I found a little bit surprising. — Joseph Stiglitz

I don't think if we had been able to make that choice rationally, we would have said that's what we want to do. We would have said: "Can't we save the banks and solve our health care problems?" The answer is yes. You could have. — Joseph Stiglitz

There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history-a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it's crucial to get the history straight. — Joseph Stiglitz

The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there. — Joseph Stiglitz

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

We could have saved Wall Street without putting our future in jeopardy. I predicted that there would be all-around consequences - in the long run as well as in the short run. People are now saying we can't afford health care reform because we spent all the money on the banks. So, in effect, we're saying that it's better that we give rich bankers a couple of trillion than giving ordinary Americans access to health care. — Joseph Stiglitz

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

The important lesson of the deficit is - and the national debt - is we have to be careful about how we're spending money. — Joseph Stiglitz

As I noted in my Nobel lecture, 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

For instance, one of the costs of the war is that soldiers today get very seriously injured but stay alive, and we can keep them alive but at an enormous price. — Joseph Stiglitz

When I said "the pocket of the banks," it is not necessarily a mercenary relationship. It is a mindset. — Joseph Stiglitz

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

Health care is very different from other sectors of the economy in several respects, one of which is the fact that the risk can be very high beyond people's ability. That leads to insurance. — Joseph Stiglitz

It is trust, more than money, that makes the world go round. — Joseph Stiglitz

The issue is: $1 trillion or $2 trillion is a lot of money. If our objective is to have stability in the Middle East, secure oil, or extend democracy, you can do a lot of democracy buying for this sum. To put it in context: The whole world spends $50 billion a year on foreign aid. — Joseph Stiglitz

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

The recovery of the banks is what happens when you reduce competition, lend money to them at zero interest rates, allow them to gamble. That particular style of restoration actually inhibits the economic recovery. — Joseph Stiglitz

They [political leaders ] thought the only problem was the banking system, and if they fixed the banking system, all would be fine. But the banking system and the mortgage problem were symptomatic of some deeper problems, and evidently they still haven't recognized those deeper problems. — Joseph Stiglitz

No one would look just at a firm's revenues to assess how well it was doing. Far more relevant is the balance sheet, which shows assets and liability. That is also true for a country. — Joseph Stiglitz

American inequality didn't just happen. It was created. — Joseph Stiglitz

The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged - debating - helped shape my interests in public policy. — Joseph Stiglitz

I've always been sceptical about the notion that the market is a person you can engage in an argument with, and that that person is an intelligent, rational, well-intentioned person: it is fantasy. We know that ... the market is subject to irrational optimism and pessimism, and is vindictive ... You're dealing with a crazy man ... Having got what he wants he will still kill you. — Joseph Stiglitz

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

The military is focusing only on the short run costs. If they don't provide appropriate body armor, they save some money today, but the healthcare cost is going to be the future for some other president down the line. I view that as both fiscally and morally irresponsible. — Joseph Stiglitz

Economists often like startling theorems, results which seem to run counter to conventional wisdom. — Joseph Stiglitz

I went to public schools, and while Gary was, like most American cities, racially segregated, it was at least socially integrated - a cross section of children from families of all walks of life. — Joseph Stiglitz

Similarly, payments for a dead soldier amount to only $500,000, which is far less than standard estimates of the lifetime economic cost of a death. This statistical value of a life in the US amounts to circa $6.5 million. — Joseph Stiglitz

GDP tells you nothing about sustainability — Joseph Stiglitz

If the President asked you to help, I don't think anybody could refuse, unless one felt that one couldn't be effective. — Joseph Stiglitz

Even if Bush could be forgiven for taking America, and much of the rest of the world, to war on false pretenses, and for misrepresenting the cost of the venture, there is no excuse for how he chose to finance it. His was the first war in history paid for entirely on credit. As America went into battle, with deficits already soaring from his 2001 tax cut, Bush decided to plunge ahead with yet another round of tax relief for the wealthy. — Joseph Stiglitz

The striking thing about America is - it's historically, extraordinary unusual,I don't of any other instance - is that productivity of workers and wages have not moved in tandem. — Joseph Stiglitz

I, like many members of my generation, was concerned with segregation and the repeated violation of civil rights. — Joseph Stiglitz

Much of my work in this period was concerned with exploring the logic of economic models, but also with attempting to reconcile the models with every day observation. — Joseph Stiglitz

International lending banks need to focus on areas where private investment doesn't go, such as infrastructure projects, education and poverty relief. — Joseph Stiglitz

My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me, an approach to learning which was later reinforced by my experiences at Amherst. — Joseph Stiglitz

We are helping the people that [George W.]Bush says are evil. Teheran couldn't be happier about the high oil prices resulting from the Iraq war. — Joseph Stiglitz

Trickle-down economics is a myth. Enriching corporations - as the TPP would - will not necessarily help those in the middle, let alone those at the bottom. — Joseph Stiglitz

Not everybody is qualified to go to Stanford, but everybody should have access to the best qualify for which they are eligible. — Joseph Stiglitz

I went to Amherst because my brother had gone there before me, and he went there because his guidance counselor thought that we would do better there than at a large university like Harvard. — Joseph Stiglitz

Active learning is always involved with interaction between teachers and students and Socratic methods and that's gonna continue. — Joseph Stiglitz

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

Any society has to delegate the responsibility to maintain a certain kind of order. Enforcing regulations, making sure people stop at stoplights. We can't function as a society without rules and regulations, and the enforcement mechanism of those rules and regulations. — Joseph Stiglitz

The fact that the government had to put up hundreds of billions of dollars to Citibank in guarantees was a public declaration that Citibank was a mess. Making Citibank go through financial restructuring would not have conveyed any more different information. So it's very hard to see why it would have had that kind of a panic if it were done well. — Joseph Stiglitz

I knew that discrimination existed, even though there were many individuals who were not prejudiced. — Joseph Stiglitz

I think in part the reason is that 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

If you're injured in an automobile accident, and you sue the driver, you get much more for your injury than if you're fighting for your country. There's a double standard here. — Joseph Stiglitz

I grew up in a family in which political issues were often discussed, and debated intensely. — Joseph Stiglitz

Most people think the Iraq war has increased the probability of an attack. However, it's difficult to put this aspect into financial terms. — 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. — Joseph Stiglitz

Amherst is a liberal arts college, committed to providing students with a broad education. — Joseph Stiglitz

Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently. — Joseph Stiglitz

What most Americans mean when they say "the end of the recession" is, "When will it be back to normal? When can we get jobs? When will the employment rate be back to 4 percent or 5 percent?" — Joseph Stiglitz

I think what they've been doing is largely almost in firefighting mode without a good conceptual framework - either at the micro or the macro level. Micro, you would ask: "What kind of financial or banking system do we want?" Macro, you would say: "What are the underlying problems in the structure of our economy?" — Joseph Stiglitz

My research in this period centered around growth, technical change, and income distribution, both how growth affected the distribution of income and how the distribution of income affected growth. — Joseph Stiglitz

I think that for the developing world there are many versions of capitalism, and countries have to choose one that's appropriate. — Joseph Stiglitz

I trace the inequality to a particular set of decisions that we took when we lowered the tax rate from 91% down to very low levels at the top, where we stripped away regulations. So the result of that was not a more dynamic economy, but a more unequal society. We tried the experiment of trickle-down. A third of a century later, we can say fairly definitively that it was a failure. — Joseph Stiglitz

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