Greetings fellow Weebly blog readers! Welcome to my very first Weebly Economist blog page! Feel free to read on to get to know me better.
ABOUT ME
Personal Life:
My name is Joseph Eugene Stiglitz. I was born in the industrial city, Gary, located in the state of Indiana. My mother is Charlotte (née Fishman) and my father is Nathaniel D. Stiglitz and they are both Jewish. I was born on the 9th of February in the year of 1943. I grew up in a family where political issues were talked about strongly. My maternal side of the family were New Deal Democrats and they worshipped the FDR while my father was a Jeffersonian Democray who worked as an insurance agent. He often spoke about the virtues of self-employment and being one's own boss. In the mid-seventies, my father had become a strong advocate of civil rights. He insisted on paying social security contributions and I feel that his attitude did have a big effect on me and had influenced my ideas on economics. I was married to Jane Hannaway in 1978, unfortunately, our marriage did not work out and so we divorced. I married for the third time which I hope is my last time to my dear wife, Anya Schriffin, on the 28th of October in the year of 2004.
Education:
At the age of 17, I studied at Armherst College and graduated at the age of 20. I received my first PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the age of 24.
Occupation:
As of today, I am an American economist, author and a professor at Columbia University.
My name is Joseph Eugene Stiglitz. I was born in the industrial city, Gary, located in the state of Indiana. My mother is Charlotte (née Fishman) and my father is Nathaniel D. Stiglitz and they are both Jewish. I was born on the 9th of February in the year of 1943. I grew up in a family where political issues were talked about strongly. My maternal side of the family were New Deal Democrats and they worshipped the FDR while my father was a Jeffersonian Democray who worked as an insurance agent. He often spoke about the virtues of self-employment and being one's own boss. In the mid-seventies, my father had become a strong advocate of civil rights. He insisted on paying social security contributions and I feel that his attitude did have a big effect on me and had influenced my ideas on economics. I was married to Jane Hannaway in 1978, unfortunately, our marriage did not work out and so we divorced. I married for the third time which I hope is my last time to my dear wife, Anya Schriffin, on the 28th of October in the year of 2004.
Education:
At the age of 17, I studied at Armherst College and graduated at the age of 20. I received my first PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the age of 24.
Occupation:
As of today, I am an American economist, author and a professor at Columbia University.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO ECONOMICS
Information asymmetry:
One of my most famous researches was a research on screening which is a technique used by one economic agent to extract private information from another. This research on screening contributes to the theory of information asymmetry which deals with the study of decisions in transactions where one party has more or better information than the other. In 2001, George Akerlof, Michael Spence and I had the privilege of sharing the Nobel Prize in Economics “for laying the foundations for the theory of markets with asymmetric information”. I differ with Adam Smith's metaphor on there being an “invisible hand” in the market as I feel that there is no such thing as an “invisible hand” in the market as I believe that whenever there are "externalities" – where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay or for which they are not compensated – markets will not work well. Through the theories conceived by myself and others, we are able to further explain that unrestricted markets often not only lead to social injustice but do not even produce efficient outcomes and interestingly, there has been no intellectual challenge to Adam Smith's idea on the market in an economy being led by an “invisible hand”, which describes the market regulating itself without intervention from external bodies. In the world today, there needs to be an optimum balance between the market and government, an economy cannot do without the intervention of the government as the government is just as important as the market.
Shapiro-Stiglitz Model (Efficiency Wages):
Together with Shapiro, we did research on efficiency wages and came up with a model known as the Shapiro-Stiglitz Model to explain why there is unemployment even in equilibrium. In our analysis, we made two observations:
One of my most famous researches was a research on screening which is a technique used by one economic agent to extract private information from another. This research on screening contributes to the theory of information asymmetry which deals with the study of decisions in transactions where one party has more or better information than the other. In 2001, George Akerlof, Michael Spence and I had the privilege of sharing the Nobel Prize in Economics “for laying the foundations for the theory of markets with asymmetric information”. I differ with Adam Smith's metaphor on there being an “invisible hand” in the market as I feel that there is no such thing as an “invisible hand” in the market as I believe that whenever there are "externalities" – where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay or for which they are not compensated – markets will not work well. Through the theories conceived by myself and others, we are able to further explain that unrestricted markets often not only lead to social injustice but do not even produce efficient outcomes and interestingly, there has been no intellectual challenge to Adam Smith's idea on the market in an economy being led by an “invisible hand”, which describes the market regulating itself without intervention from external bodies. In the world today, there needs to be an optimum balance between the market and government, an economy cannot do without the intervention of the government as the government is just as important as the market.
Shapiro-Stiglitz Model (Efficiency Wages):
Together with Shapiro, we did research on efficiency wages and came up with a model known as the Shapiro-Stiglitz Model to explain why there is unemployment even in equilibrium. In our analysis, we made two observations:
- Humans can choose on their level of effort unlike other forms of capital
- It is expensive for firms to find out how much effort workers input
- to prevent unemployment from rising during recessions, wages do not fall enough. If the demand for labour falls, wages will fall too and this will lead to an increase of workers “shirking” (not putting in enough effort). Therefore if employment levels were to be maintained with lower wages given, workers will be less productive due to “shirking”. Ultimately, employers do not wish for workers to come to a stage of “shirking” due to a decrease in wages, hence unemployment levels are high during times of recession as employers are reluctant to lower wages.
- by moving from one private cost of hiring to another private cost of hiring, firms will be required to re-optimise due to shifting levels of unemployment which leaves firms being unable to cut wages until unemployment rises.
I hope you fellow Weebly-ers enjoyed reading my blog as much as I did typing it! Thank you for stopping by and have a nice day!