Globalization and Its Discontents

Joseph E. Stiglitz may be a consummate insider, but in this volume he is not one to toe the party line. One of three winners of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics and former chief economist for the World Bank, as well as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton, Stiglitz directs sharp words toward those who would presume to steer globalization. He aims his criticism here chiefly at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF worsened the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and "does not own up to mistakes of monetary policy" in the region, he complains. (South Korea ignored its counsel and recovered well, he says.) This discontented meditation on what he considers dysfunctional institutions makes for a lively read and offers a rare glimpse of the inner corridors of global power.