Joseph Stiglitz

The Paris climate agreement may be a harbinger of the spirit and mindset needed to sustain genuine global cooperation.

China's government has far more control over the country's economy than our government has over ours, and it is moving from export dependence to a model of growth driven by domestic demand. Any restriction on exports to the U.S. would simply accelerate a process already underway.

There is a broad consensus, not only in the United States but in most of the world, that if you are in an economic downturn, you need to stimulate. Germany seems to be an exception.

Some people say we have this inequality because some people have been contributing much more to our society, and so it's fair that they get more. But then you look at the people who are at the top, and you realize they're not the people who have transformed our economy, our society.

A single currency entails a fixed interest rate, which means countries can't manage their own currency to suit their own needs. You need a variety of institutions to help nations for which the policies aren't well suited. Europe introduced the euro without providing those structures.

European officials thought that austerity was part of what they called their 'convergence policies,' of trying to bring countries together. Instead, it actually made things worse. There's more inequality within countries and more disparity across countries.

Having excessive power in the hands of one country meant the fate of the world was too dependent on what happened in that one country.

Globalization and trade liberalization were supposed to make us all better off through the mechanism of trickle-down economics. What we seemed to be seeing instead was trickle-up economics, accompanied by a destruction of democratic politics, as we moved ever closer to a system of 'one dollar, one vote' as opposed to 'one person, one vote.'

It is trust, more than money, that makes the world go round.

GDP tells you nothing about sustainability

As I noted in my Nobel lecture, an early insight in my work on the economics of information concerned the problem of appropriability - the difficulty that those who pay for information have in getting returns.

International lending banks need to focus on areas where private investment doesn't go, such as infrastructure projects, education and poverty relief.

I think in part the reason is that seeing an economy that is, in many ways, quite different from the one grows up in, helps crystallize issues: in one's own environment, one takes too much for granted, without asking why things are the way they are.

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