Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz Joins AfDB's Eminent Speakers Program

4 January 2010
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African Development Bank (Abidjan)
press release

Location: Tunis

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is pleased to announce that the eminent Nobel Laureate economist, Professor Joseph Stiglitz, will give a presentation on the theme: "Post Financial Crisis: Options for Africa" in Tunis on 11 January 2010. Professor Stiglitz will be the latest in a long line of distinguished speakers who have participated in the Bank's Eminent Speakers Program.

In the context of the post financial crisis, Professor Stiglitz will share his views on what the options are for African countries, ranging from reforms, privatization, capital market liberalization, nationalization and state intervention, stabilization, and governance.

Neoclassical economics assumes that markets are always efficient. For Stiglitz, however it is only under exceptional circumstances that markets are efficient.

The real debate is, therefore, about finding the right balance between the market and government. While this balance will differ from time to time and place to place, both are needed and they can each complement the other.

Joseph Stiglitz received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his contribution to the theory of information asymmetry. He has made major contributions to macro-economics and monetary theory, to development economics and trade theory, to public and corporate finance to the theories of industrial organizations and rural organization, and to the theories of welfare economics and income and welfare distribution.

In the 1980, he helped revive interest in the economics of R&D. His work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve their performance.

His book Globalization and Its Discontents has been translated into 35 languages and has sold more than one million copies worldwide.

The AfDB Eminent Speakers Program, launched in March 2006, is a platform to document of Statespersons, global citizens and other people in positions of high responsibility views on Africa's development.

Professor Stiglitz's presentation will be the 15th seminar in the series. It will be chaired by Donald Kaberuka, AfDB President.

Contacts

David Short

Read the original article on African Development Bank (AfDB).

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