Stiglitz, Joseph Eugene
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, 1943–, American economist, b. Gary, Ind., Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1967. He has taught at a number of educational institutions, including Stanford (1974–76, 1988–2001) and Columbia (2001–), served on the Council of Economic Advisers (1993–97, chairman 1995–97), and was senior vice president and chief economist at the World Bank (1997–2000). Stiglitz shared the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with George Akerlof and Michael Spence for their work explaining how asymmetries with respect to information affect markets. Stiglitz has studied the effects of disparities in information on the insurance, credit, and financial markets among other areas of the economy and also has focused on development economics. He is noted as a critic of the effects of globalization and free trade on developing nations and of such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; he was fired from his post at the World Bank because of his disagreement with some of its policies.