Joseph Stiglitz, a winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, will present the keynote address during a gathering of university presidents from around the world on Princeton's campus Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 14-15.
Stiglitz, a University Professor at Columbia University, will discuss "Innovative Ways for Financing Global Public Goods" at 5 p.m. Tuesday in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall. The address is free and open to the public.
The conference, which is not open to the public, is intended to explore common interests among the world's leading universities and to provide an opportunity for these key institutions to contribute to the solution of global public policy challenges. The second annual Secretary-General's Global Colloquium of University Presidents is chaired by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and brings together representatives of 15 to 20 universities from around the world to address two issues. This year, those issues are "The Social Benefits of the Research University in the 21st Century" and "Innovative Sources of Funding for Public Goods."
Stiglitz, who will initiate discussion on the latter topic, was a professor of economics at Princeton from 1979 to 1988. He won the Nobel Prize, in part, for work he did with Michael Rothschild, the William Stuart Tod Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Stiglitz shared the prize with Michael Spence, a 1966 Princeton alumnus and professor emeritus in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and George Akerlof, a professor of economics at the University of California-Berkeley. The trio was honored for their work in advancing new ways to analyze markets.
Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993 to 1995, during the Clinton administration, and served as the council's chair from 1995 to 1997. He was chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000.
Members of the press who wish to attend the Stiglitz lecture should contact Cass Cliatt in the Office of Communications at (609) 258-6108 or ccliatt@princeton.edu by noon Monday, Feb. 13. No other discussion sessions being held as part of the colloquium are open to the public or the media.
