http://theeuropean-magazine.com/633-stiglitz-joseph/634-austerity-and-a-new-recession
In this interview, Joseph Stiglitz details a few issues that he has with the way that economic systems are being discussed in the academic and political sphere.
In a statement that relates to our early classroom discussion about measuring economic systems, Stiglitz argues that we should be more interested in the welfare of the majority of citizens in an economic system than the overall GDP numbers. I can't say I disagree with Stiglitz here, but he does fail to provide a counter to GDP. Although equality could be measured by the Gini coefficient, Stiglitz seems to want a merge between the two.
Stiglitz also expresses dismay at academia who still believe in the market after the financial crisis, arguing that they are preventing potential economists with different ideas from entering that market, and also blames these academics for providing oversimplified and distorted economic models to the public and policy makers. In this assertion, I feel as though Stiglitz is being unnecessarily cocky and harsh towards economists who happen to have differing views. In all honesty, I do not think Stiglitz's viewpoint is any more clearly correct than the academics he attacks. Although he sees the economic collapse of the U.S while Scandinavian countries were performing well, he fails to note the economic failure of countries that fell within the European model, including Greece and Spain.
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