Praise for Joseph Stiglitz: Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, and he deserves to be. Over a long career, he has made incisive and highly valued contributions to the explanation of an astonishingly broad range of economic phenomena, including taxes, interest rates, consumer behavior, corporate finance, and much else. Especially among economists who are still of active working age, he ranks as a titan of the field. -- Benjamin M. Friedman The New York Review of Books If one's attention is on the economic long run and the processes involved in economic change, innovation and learning quickly can be seen as at the center of the stage. Unfortunately, for the last half century the bulk of the attention in microeconomic theorizing has been on economic statics which is blind to these variables. This book is a welcome exception. -- Richard Nelson, Columbia University

Profound and dazzling. In their new book Stiglitz and Greenwald study the human ability to learn and the wish to learn, and thereby uncover the processes that drive the production, dissemination, and use of knowledge. Their analysis provides the foundations of an understanding of the progress and regress of societies. This is social science at its best. -- Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge This is an impressive tour de force, from the theory of the firm all the way to long term development, guided by the focus on knowledge and learning. Indeed, when economic theory takes on board knowledge - with its specific features and modes of accumulation - many of the conventional conclusions break down, from the welfare properties of competitive markets to the virtues of 'comparative advantages' in international exchanges, and many others. At the same time in learning economies public policies and institutions are shown to play a paramount role. This is an ambitious book with far-reaching policy implications, to be read also by those who do not trust too much the equilibrium and rationality assumptions on which a good deal of the book runs : just with 'knowledge taken seriously' one can go a quite long way in understanding modern development. -- Giovanni Dosi, Director, Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna If one's attention is on the economic long run and the processes involved in economic change, innovation and learning quickly can be seen as at the center of the stage. Unfortunately, for the last half century the bulk of the attention in microeconomic theorizing has been on economic statics which is blind to these variables. This book is a welcome exception. -- Richard Nelson, Columbia University Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald have contributed a superb new understanding of the dynamic economy as a learning society, one that goes well beyond the usual treatment of education, training and R&D. This important work continues the quest of Stiglitz and Greenwald for an appreciation of the role of public policy in overcoming market failures, asymmetries and inefficiencies, as well as insights on the limits and distortions of laissez-faire assumptions of optimality. This book should be at the very center of the next wave of policy debate. -- Robert Kuttner, co-editor, The American Prospect

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and Co-Chair of Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought. He was winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics. He served on President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, and then joined the World Bank as chief economist and senior vice president. His most recent book is The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future. Bruce C. Greenwald is Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia Business School. He is director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing and his books include Value Investing: from Graham to Buffett and Beyond and Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy Portfolio.