Joseph Stiglitz Quotes

Americans like to say we’re fighting for democracy, and yet young Americans have come to the view that democracy doesn’t deliver.

With the election of Trump, America‘s soft power has taken a big hit. The United States has moved from a position of leadership in the creation of a rules-based international system to a position of leadership in its destruction and the creation of a regime of global protectionism. The damage will be long-lasting.

China‘s government has far more control over the country‘s economy than our government has over ours, and it is moving from export dependence to a model of growth driven by domestic demand. Any restriction on exports to the U.S. would simply accelerate a process already underway.

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.

Tax policy should reflect a country’s values and address its problems.

There is something about the mindset of a scientist that is different – an awareness of uncertainty, modeling, proof.

Under Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the U.K., there was a rewriting of the basic rules of capitalism. These two governments changed the rules governing labour bargaining, weakening trade unions, and they weakened anti-trust enforcement, allowing more monopolies to be created.

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

Trump will fail even in his proclaimed goal of reducing the trade deficit, which is determined by the disparity between domestic savings and investment.

For Obama, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement – unilaterally abrogated by Trump – was part of the ‘pivot to Asia,’ a re-assertion of the role of America in that part of the world.

Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight.

Climate change poses an existential threat to the planet that is no less dire than that posed by North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions.

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

If Trump actually wants to help those who have been left behind, he must go beyond the ideological battles of the past.

Free migration within Europe means that countries that have done a better job at reducing unemployment will predictably end up with more than their fair share of refugees. Workers in these countries bear the cost in depressed wages and higher unemployment, while employers benefit from cheaper labor.

Donald Trump’s astonishing victory in the U.S. presidential election has made one thing abundantly clear: too many Americans – particularly white male Americans – feel left behind.

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.

With my kids, I’m a little sappier than my father may have been.

The IP standards advanced countries favour typically are designed not to maximise innovation and scientific progress, but to maximise the profits of big pharmaceutical companies and others able to sway trade negotiations.

America will suffer under Trump.

An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year – an economy like America’s – is not likely to do well over the long haul.

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

The financial sector has so distorted salaries that physicists are getting drawn into the financial sector. All that has led to an undersupply of people committed to the public sector.

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.

People at the top spend less money than those at the bottom, so when you have redistribution toward the top, aggregate demand goes down. Unless you intervene, you’re going to have a weak economy unless something else happens.

To someone like me, who has watched trade negotiations closely for more than a quarter-century, it is clear that U.S. trade negotiators got most of what they wanted. The problem was with what they wanted. Their agenda was set, behind closed doors, by corporations.

Letting bygones be bygones is a basic principle in economics.

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.

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

Too many countries of the former Soviet bloc remain under the control of authoritarian leaders, including some, like the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who have learned how to maintain a more convincing facade of elections than their communist predecessors.

America’s role in the global economy inevitably was going to diminish; we’re smaller relative to – as China, India, other emerging markets grow.

It’s very clear that TPP was promoted by corporate interests, it was driven by ideology, not by economic science. And when they started looking at the net trade benefits, they are miniscule.

If manufacturing jobs do come back to the U.S., they will be done by robots in hi-tech parts of the country rather than the Rust Belt states.

A lot of my book, ‘The Price of Inequality,’ is about why there has been an increase in rent-seeking.

Trump assumed office promising to ‘drain the swamp‘ in Washington, D.C. Instead, the swamp has grown wider and deeper.

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

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.

The reality is that what we did in 2010 with the Dodd-Frank wasn’t enough.

Trump can bring jobs back, but they will be minimal-wage jobs, not the high-paying jobs of the 1950s.

Donald J. Trump has the good fortune of taking office as the economy is finally recovering from the 2008 crisis.

When you don’t have equality of opportunity because you don’t have equal access to education, it just seems so outrageous. It weakens our economy and leads to more inequality.

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

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

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

Under the rule of law, if the government wants to prevent firms from outsourcing and offshoring, it enacts legislation and adopts regulations to create the appropriate incentives and discourage undesirable behaviour. It does not bully or threaten particular firms or portray traumatised refugees as a security threat.

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

China, with its large emerging middle class, is among the big beneficiaries of globalization.

High levels of economic inequality lead to imbalances in political power, as those at the top use their economic weight to shape our politics in ways that give them more economic power.

Ensuring preschool education for all and investing more in public schools is essential if the U.S. is to avoid becoming a neo-feudal country where advantages and disadvantages are passed on from one generation to the next.

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