Joseph Stiglitz
America's role in the global economy inevitably was going to diminish; we're smaller relative to - as China, India, other emerging markets grow.
China-led globalization in some ways worries me because they are not concerned about human rights, labor rights. They probably aren't even really concerned about competitive marketplaces. So in some ways, they're like Mr. Trump.
It isn't inevitable that we have a globalization which is used by the corporations not to pay taxes. It is not inevitable that we have a form of globalization in which corporations use the threat of moving jobs abroad to lower wages. None of this is inevitable.
We could have managed globalization in ways that ordinary citizens would have benefited rather than just the corporations. Trade is beneficial. There are gains to be had from taking advantage of comparative advantage and specialization. That's true, if you manage globalization right.
When you have a highly divided society, it's hard to come together to make investments in the common good.
Let me put it very forcefully: No large economy has ever recovered from an economic downturn through austerity. It's not going to happen in the United States, and it's not going to happen in Europe.
One of the arguments I make for the failure of the euro is that, at the time it was being constructed, there was a 'neo-liberal' ideology which said that all we need to do to make this thing work is to get deficits low, keep inflation low, and take down barriers, and then everything would be fine.
European officials thought that austerity was part of what they called their 'convergence policies,' of trying to bring countries together. Instead, it actually made things worse. There's more inequality within countries and more disparity across countries.
One of the things that happens when you have austerity is that wages get lower, and some people think lower wages in the short run can increase corporate profits.
There is a broad consensus, not only in the United States but in most of the world, that if you are in an economic downturn, you need to stimulate. Germany seems to be an exception.
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.Collection: Fate
Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies.Collection: Life
It is trust, more than money, that makes the world go round.Collection: World
What you measure affects what you do. If you don't measure the right thing, you don't do the right thing.Collection: Ifs
Governments can enhance growth by increasing inclusiveness. A country's most valuable resource is its people. So it is essential to ensure that everyone can live up to their potential, which requires educational opportunities for all.Collection: Country
GDP tells you nothing about sustainabilityCollection: Gdp
The problem is a lot of what is called economics is not economics. It is more ideology or religion.Collection: Problem
American inequality didn't just happen. It was created.Collection: Inequality
Anybody who knows about capitalism knows that bankruptcy is an essential part of capitalism.Collection: Essentials
The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.Collection: Hands
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Business
In developing countries, lack of infrastructure is a far more serious barrier to trade than tariffs.Collection: Country
Workers' rights should be a central focus of development.Collection: Rights
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.Collection: People
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.Collection: Decision
There have always been two theories about inequality. One is that it reflects just deserts. The other is that there are large elements of exploitation and inequality of opportunities. The evidence is overwhelmingly that the increase in inequality is associated with those negative factors. If it were all social contribution, then when the top did better, they would be contributing to everybody's well-being. That trickle-down hasn't happened. We've seen median income, people in the middle, actually worse off than they were 25 years ago.Collection: Opportunity
The only surprise about the economic crisis of 2008 was that it came as a surprise to so many.Collection: Surprise
Finance ministers and central bank governors have the seats at the table, not labor unions or labor ministers. Finance ministers and central bank governors are linked to financial communities in their countries, so they push policies that reflect the viewpoints and interests of the financial community and barely hear the voices of those who are the first victims of dictated policies.Collection: Country
When Donald Trump campaigned for president, he told the American people that he would be a different type of Republican, that he would take on the political and economic establishment, that he would stand up for working people, that he understood the pain that families all across this country were experiencing. Well, sadly, it was just cheap and dishonest campaign rhetoric that was meant to get votes, nothing more than that.Collection: Country
Twenty per cent of American children grow up in poverty, and that means they get inadequate nutrition, inadequate health care, and because we have a very local education system, they get inadequate access to education. With those as a starting base, you perpetuate inequality. That's why, here in New York, Mayor de Blasio has made a big deal of trying to focus on preschool education, because by five years old, there are already huge differences. We've finally begun to recognize it.Collection: Children
If you destroy a firm, you can't pull it out of bankruptcy overnight.Collection: Firm
Nationalization of private debts undermines prudential lender behavior and is a government intervention in the market.Collection: Government Intervention
You can't overestimate what happens when you encourage regulators to believe that the goal of regulation is not to regulate.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Country
When I said "the pocket of the banks," it is not necessarily a mercenary relationship. It is a mindset.Collection: Pockets
There was a hope then by some people that what we call trickle-down economics would work. That if you made the economy pie bigger, everybody would benefit. Twenty-five years after NAFTA, we know that that is not true. We should have known then that it was not true.Collection: People
As a rich country, we can, in some sense, "afford" the war. But spending money on the war means that we are not spending money on other things that we could have spent the money on.Collection: Country
The important lesson of the deficit is - and the national debt - is we have to be careful about how we're spending money.Collection: Important
During my three years as chief economist of the World Bank, labor market issues were looked at through the lens of neoclassical economics. A standard message was to increase labor market flexibility. The not-so-subtle subtext was to lower wages and lay off unneeded workers.Collection: World
Countries were told they had no incentives because of social ownership. The solution was privatization and profit, profit, profit. Privatization would replace inefficient state ownership, and the profit system plus the huge defense cutbacks would let them take existing resources and an increase in consumption. Worries about distribution and competition or even concerns about democratic processes being undermined by excessive concentration of wealth could be addressed later.Collection: Country
The momentum today behind the idea of a new global reserve currency reflects, in effect, the rise of the rest in world politics and economics, led by China.Collection: World
For 60 years, since World War II, we have been trying to create a rules-based system, a global economic system. We understand that what makes our economy function is what we call the rule of law, and what is true domestically is also true internationally. It is important to have rules by which we govern our relations with other countries.Collection: Country
Trump said we got snookered. That those agreements like NAFTA were the worst agreements ever and suggested that our trade negotiators were snookered by these smart negotiators from Mexico or Africa. It is laughable. I have watched these trade negotiations. We got what we wanted.Collection: Smart
America has had to turn to foreigners to finance its debt - not surprising since household saving in the last years has plummeted to zero. China is one of the largest holders of American debt.Collection: Finance
This Iraq war has been the most "privatized" war in America's history. It has seen the most extensive use of contractors. The contractors have increased the costs; but they have been necessary - the military simply could not have done it on their own. we would have had to increase the size of the military. But the George W. Bush Administration wanted America to believe that it could have a war, essentially for free, without raising taxes, without increasing the size of the armed forces.Collection: Military
If the President asked you to help, I don't think anybody could refuse, unless one felt that one couldn't be effective.Collection: Thinking
I don't think anybody really thinks that one should get rid of the World Bank. Reform is one thing, but getting rid of it I think would be wrong.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: People