2018 Chapters (Layout Features)

Addressing Inequality: Education for the Information Age

Stiglitz, Joseph E.

Today's economy is markedly different from that when I was a student at Amherst, a little over fifty years ago. Four interrelated changes stand out: we've moved from a manufacturing economy to an economy based on services, knowledge, and innovation; it is a more globalized economy, with movement of people, goods, services, capital, and knowledge across borders beyond anything that we could have imagined; it is a more dynamic economy, with people frequently changing jobs and homes; and it is a far more unequal society. We've become more divided and more polarized, with income disparities that are far greater than they were in the period after World War II.