Joseph Stiglitz Quotes

The dollar is the reserve currency of the world.

The good thing about the IMF is there is no European politics involved.

I have full confidence in the IMF. It is a very strong international institution.

Were we to find ourselves in a world in which there was a very significant amount of dollarization, … it would be in the political interests of certain parties in other countries whose policies were less than perfect …, to blame us as the root of their problem.

Currency stabilization is just one of the old fetishes of so called ‘international bankers”.

The U.S. currency has been the most attractive currency to be in for very, very long periods of time.

I also believe that most of the emerging economies have a fairly large amount of foreign exchange reserves, relative to 10 years ago.

The powershift began already several years ago, under the Bush administration, when the dollar became very volatile and started declining. That is when China shifted from having almost 100 percent of its reserves in dollars to 75 percent. Some countries went completely out of the dollar. The dollar, for all intents and purposes, lost its special reserve status and people starting talking about a portfolio, or basket, approach as a store of wealth instead of the dollar.

The primary factor that enables our government to peddle economic snake oil is the dollar's unique role as the world's reserve currency, and our creditors' willingness to preserve its status. By buying up dollars and loaning them back to us through Treasury debt, productive countries give American politicians cart blanche to play Santa Claus.

The most important initiative you could take to improve the world economy would be to stabilize the dollar-euro rate.

I am specifically concerned about the idea that the legislative process is one that gets characterized the way it is as the 'fiscal cliff.' At the end of the day, the United States is the biggest economy in the world, and the dollar is the reserve currency in the world. I think it behooves us to act in a much more responsible way.

Our membership of the euro is a guarantee of monetary stability and creates the right conditions for sustainable growth. Our membership of the euro is the only choice.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

The dollar is currently the principal reserve currency in the world.

I mean, I'm a conservative. I believe that, you know, if you borrow too much, you just build up debts for your children to pay off. You put pressure on interest rates. You put at risk your economy. That's the case in Britain. We're not a reserve currency, so we need to get on and deal with this issue.

We can pretend that China is not there. But China is there, and unless we put our economy on the right track, it is going to overwhelm us completely.

So if the euro, if Euroland is to become a reserve center, if the euro is to become a reserve currency, Euroland will have to have a deficit in its overall balance of payments.

For years, we've grown dependant on American consumers as the world's spenders of last resort. They've kept Europe out of recession, allowed China to industrialise, and prevented global deflation. But at the same time, they've not been looking after their own futures.

The reserve currency role seems to add prestige to an area and some people in Europe have talked about the desirability of the euro becoming an international reserve currency.

Eventually the dollar won't always rule. Eventually there will be a challenge to the United States and it will have to be like other countries that are a bit concerned about their currency, and then have to ratchet back in order to - right, in order to sustain. We just haven't reached that point yet.

I don't want to see the dollar strong because the rest of the world is crumbling. I would like to see the dollar strong because the Fed has said it wants it to be strong in the future.

By the way, the European Union Member States together - even the euro area Member States together - are by far the biggest contributors to the IMF.

Our focus is on ensuring America has the strongest economy in the world for the next 100 years and to do that, we need to get to the role of the Federal Reserve and we need to get it right.

The problem started before World War I. The gold standard was working fairly well. But it broke down because of the war and what happened in the 1920s. And then the U.S. started to become so dominant in the world, with the dollar becoming the central currency after the 1930s, the whole world economy shifted.

And I am convinced that a single focus on preserving the purchasing power of the dollar, in effect, guarding against inflation or deflation, actually creates a solid foundation for the greatest job growth and the strongest economy that America can have.