The paper - which will introduce the book Intellectual Property Rights: Legal and Economic Challenges for Development, edited by M. Cimoli, G. Dosi, K. Maskus, R. Okediji, J. Reichman and J. Stiglitz, Oxford University Press, forthcoming - discusses the role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)...

Tony Atkinson is universally celebrated for his outstanding contributions to the measurement and analysis of inequality, but he never saw the study of inequality as a separate branch of economics. He was an economist in the classical sense, rejecting any sub-field labelling of his interests and...

Not long ago, Republicans were trying to pass a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. Democrats were skeptical, overwhelmingly Keynesian, and believed that deficit spending had ended the Great Depression. Under Rubinomics the positions began to switch: Democrats became the defenders of...

The funding troubles of Social Security have been greatly exaggerated in an effort to push a privatization agenda. Privatization has laudable goals—increased choice and higher returns—but few would choose to risk their secure retirement income and unfortunately higher returns cannot be...

Joseph Stiglitz argues that in certain respects the economy is precarious and a crisis is possible, but global malaise is more likely in 2006.