Joseph E. Stiglitz

«I fallimenti della politica e dell'economia sono collegati e si aggravano a vicenda». Perché viviamo in una società sempre piú diseguale? Perché i valori universali dell'equità vengono sacrificati all'avidità di pochi? Perché il sistema economico e quello politico sono fondamentalmente iniqui? In questo libro, Joseph Stiglitz, focalizzandosi sulla situazione degli Stati Uniti ed estendendo l'analisi a tutti i paesi industrialmente avanzati, ci spiega come siamo arrivati fin qui. Con parole dure e prove inconfutabili ricostruisce i fallimenti piú evidenti dei sistemi economici contemporanei, individua le cause della disuguaglianza, da ricercare nell'interazione di forze di mercato e manovre della politica, mappa le conseguenze del crescente divario fra i poveri sempre piú poveri ei ricchi sempre piú ricchi. Ma soprattutto ci indica come e perché conviene cambiare direzione.

The concentration of risk within the financial system leads to systemic instability. We propose a theory to explain the structure of the financial system and show how it alters the risk-taking incentives of financial institutions when the government optimally intervenes during crises. By issuing interbank claims, risky institutions endogenously become large and interconnected. This concentrated structure enables institutions to share the risk of systemic crises in a privately optimal way but leads to excessive risk taking even by peripheral institutions. Interconnectedness and excessive risk taking reinforce one another. Macroprudential regulation that limits the interconnectedness of risky institutions improves welfare. (JEL D82, E44, G01, G21, G28)

This paper explores the standard life-cycle model, showing that under not implausible conditions, multiplicity of momentary equilibria can arise. Multiplicity of momentary equilibria can generate an infinity of rational expectation equilibria, leading to “wobbly” macro-dynamics; this may occur even when under myopic expectations, there is a unique dynamic path. Nonetheless, one can provide a full characterization of the possible patterns of economic dynamics. In particular, we identify four possible patterns, providing a characterization of the parameter values under which each may occur. Most interestingly, under some configurations of the parameter values, bubblelike macro dynamics occur. That is, the economy endogenously approaches a critical state with a high level of investment and output where there are multiple momentary equilibria. Once the economy reaches that critical state, the system suddenly …

Wealth inequality is rising in high-income countries. Can increased public investment financed by higher capital taxes counteract this trend? We examine how such a policy affects the distribution of wealth in a setting with distinct wealth groups: dynastic savers and life-cycle savers. Our main finding is that this policy always decreases wealth inequality when the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor is moderately high. At high capital tax rates, dynastic savers disappear. Below these rates, life-cycle savers gain from the higher public expenditures financed by the higher capital tax rates. We calibrate our model to OECD economies and find a threshold elasticity of 0.82.

This paper endogenizes intervention in financial crises as the strategic negotiation between a regulator and creditors of distressed banks. Incentives for banks to contribute to a voluntary bail-in arise from their exposure to financial contagion. In equilibrium, a bail-in is possible only if the regulator’s threat to not bail out insolvent banks is credible. Contrary to models without intervention or with government bailouts only, sparse networks enhance welfare for two main reasons: they improve the credibility of the regulator’s no-bailout threat for large shocks, and they reduce free-riding incentives among bail-in contributors when the threat is credible.

This Policy Brief argues that embracing the deep uncertainty about interest rates and other key parameters determining a country’s fiscal position requires a new approach in fiscal policy. It proposes retaining fiscal discretion exercised after making the budget adjust more automatically and rapidly in areas where there is broad consensus that doing so is consistent with achieving broader societal goals. For such a semiautonomous discretionary fiscal architecture five elements are emphasized: stronger automatic stabilizers, a new infrastructure program, extension of debt maturities, indexation of long-term fiscal programs to their underlying drivers, and more emphasis on residual fiscal discretion. The goal is to provide a framework better adapted than our current budgetary structures to deep uncertainty, thus freeing up a discretionary fiscal policy to focus more on adjusting to the unanticipated.

Dünyanın en etkili birkaç iktisatçısı arasında gösterilen ve 2001’de Nobel İktisat Ödülü’nü kazanan Joseph Stiglitz, Eşitsizliğin Bedeli’nde gelir eşitsizliği konusuna önemli bir katkı yapıyor. ABD’de ortaya çıkan 2008 Krizi’ni ve dünya geneline hâkim olan Büyük Durgunluk’u sade bir dille ve derinlemesine açıklayan Stiglitz, kendi deyimiyle, yüzde 1’lik kesimin devleti, yargıyı ve demokratik süreci ele geçirerek yüzde 99’un üzerinde nasıl egemenlik kurduğunu kapsamlı şekilde ele alıyor.

This paper provides an explanation for situations in which the fundamental state variables describing the economy do not change, but aggregate consumption experiences significant changes. We present a theory of pseudo-wealth—individuals’ perceived wealth that is derived from expectations of gains in bets arising from heterogeneous expectations. This wealth is divorced from society's real assets. The creation of a market for bets necessarily generates positive pseudo-wealth. Changes in the magnitude of differences of prior beliefs will lead to changes in expected wealth and hence to changes in consumption, implying instability in aggregate and individual consumption and ex post intertemporal consumption misallocations. Moreover, ‘completing markets’ through the creation of a new market for bets can increase individual and aggregate risk. With a utilitarian social welfare function, completing markets …