Joseph Stiglitz Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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

American inequality didn't just happen. It was created.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?"

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

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.

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

Global demand for dollars has supplanted demand for manufactured goods and services, resulting in multilateral trade deficits and loss of jobs at home.

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

The budgetary cost to the UK of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2010 will total more than £18 billion. If we include the social costs the total impact will exceed £20 billion.

GDP tells you nothing about sustainability

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

Workers' rights should be a central focus of development.

Anybody who knows about capitalism knows that bankruptcy is an essential part of capitalism.

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

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

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 everyday observation.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Climate change is a reality.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

If you destroy a firm, you can't pull it out of bankruptcy overnight.

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.

When you're facing the threat of recession, you need to have an expansionary monetary and fiscal policy. Pre-Keynesian, Hooverite views are dead everywhere except on 19th Street in Washington.

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.

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.

I'm writing from New Zealand - a country that decided from the beginning that the War was wrong, and chose not to participate in Iraq War.