The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future

Question 1

According to Stiglitz, what is the worst failure of the market?

Answer 1

Unemployment

Question 2

As of March 2012, how many Americans who wanted a full time job couldn’t get one?

Answer 2

24 million; this was 1/6 of those who wanted a full time job

Question 3

Summary of Stiglitz views on markets and inequality

Answer 3

I took some of the standard assumptions (of what is called the neoclassical model) and showed that under those assumptions there should be a convergence to equality among individuals.20 It was clear that something was wrong with the standard model, just as it was clear to me, having grown up in Gary, that something was wrong with a standard model that said the economy was efficient and there was no unemployment or discrimination. It was the realization that the standard model didn’t describe well the world “we lived in that set me off on a quest for alternative models in which market imperfections, and especially imperfections of information and “irrationalities,” would play such an important role.

Question 4

Change in Real income from 1987 to 2012 among age 25 to 34 who have only graduated high school

Answer 4

have seen their real incomes decline by more than a quarter

Question 5

change in median income from 2000 to 2010 of households with a bachelor’s degree or higher

Answer 5

-10%

Question 6

the largest fraction of personal bankruptcies involve

Answer 6

the illness of family member

Question 7

in 2011 what % of unemployed were receiving unemployment benefits?

Answer 7

38%

Question 8

in 2011 what % of unemployed had never received unemployment benefits?

Answer 8

44%

Question 9

How long has income of a typical fulltime male stagnated?

Answer 9

a third of a century

Question 10

How large was the loss in housing valuations in the 07 crisis?

Answer 10

$6.5 trillion