Joseph Stiglitz Quoted in the New York Times
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor of Economics at Columbia Business School, was quoted in a recent article by the New York Times:
America’s Challenges Take Center Stage in Greece
Eleven months since the election of President Joe Biden and the defeat of populist politics at the ballot box, the United States still faces a barrage of challenges to its stability as a democracy: including a flawed voting system, data-hungry tech giants and an unequal health system.
Those were some of the views shared at the Athens Democracy Forum, a three-day conference held last week in association with The New York Times. Convened in the Greek capital annually, it brings together heads of government, business leaders, academics and activists. Panels, interviews and video commentary tackled themes, including politics, health care, economics and the challenges of technology. Participants from around the world shared their views in person and online.
Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who teaches at Columbia University, was asked about inflation and whether it was going to hit the middle classes and working classes the hardest.
“From my point of view, the inflation right now is a hiccup,” Professor Stiglitz replied. “Normally, you don’t shut down an economy then try to start it up again. This is a most unusual time, and economies don’t go through these dramatic transitions very easily.” As when a country goes to war and comes out of it, he explained, it was a major transformation, “and the market doesn’t handle these well.
“I’m not surprised that we have shortages,” he said. “There will be spikes in the prices of some goods. There will be some inflation.”