Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, helped to create the "Economics of Information," which explores the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneers pivotal concepts such as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have become standard tools of theorists and policy analysts.
He has also made major contributions in macro-economics and monetary theory, development economics and trade theory, public and corporate finance, theories of industrial organization and rural organization, theories of welfare, economics and of income and wealth distribution.
In the 1980s, he helped to revive interest in the economics of research and development. His work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve performance.
A leading educator, Stiglitz is professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia University in New York. Prior to that, he became a full professor at Yale in 1970. In 1979, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Award, given biennially by the American Economic Association to the economist under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to his field.
Established in 1982, the Distinguished Speakers Program is one of ADB’s most visible forums to network with eminent scholars and policy practitioners to keep abreast of the latest in cutting-edge development issues.
A total of 40 distinguished scholars have visited ADB under the program, including Jagdish Bhagwati, Lawrence Klein, Anne Krueger, Jeffrey Sachs, and Amartya Sen.