34 Quotes by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Rather than justice for all, we are evolving into a system of justice for those who can afford it. We have banks that are not only too big to fail, but too big to be held accountable.

Democracy, we now know, is more than periodic elections in some countries, such elections have been used to legitimize essentially authoritarian regimes and deprive large parts of the citizenry of basic rights.

Suppose someone were to describe a small country that provided free education through university for all of its citizens, transportation for schoolchildren, and free health care - including heart surgery - for all. You might suspect that a country is either phenomenally rich or on the fast track to fiscal crisis.

The only true and sustainable prosperity is shared prosperity.

Overborrowing or overlending? Lenders encourage indebtedness because it is profitable. Developing country governments are sometimes even pressured to overborrow ... Even without corruption, it is easy to be influenced by Western businessmen and financiers ... Countries that aren't sure that borrowing is worth the rist are told how important it is to establis a credit rating: borrow even if you really don't need the money.

Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies.

...decisions were often made because of ideology and politics. As a result many wrong-headed actions were taken, ones that did not solve the problem at hand but that fit with the interests or beliefs of the people in power.

We did not have to fight this war, and we did not have to go to war when we did. We could have waited until we had more safe body armor and we chose not to wait.

My work on the economics of uncertainty led naturally to the work on information asymmetries, and more generally, imperfect information.