New York Times/Business July 21, 2001 Columbia University Hires Star Economist By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Trying to regain its old glory as a teaching and research center in economics, Columbia University has hired Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Stanford University professor often mentioned as a future Nobel prize winner for his contributions to economic theory.
"Joe Stiglitz is one of the giant figures in economics of the last 50 years," Columbia boasted in a press release announcing the appointment, to be made public today. Mr. Stiglitz said that he shifted to Columbia mainly because of its "broad commitment to international economics," but also because his companion, Anya Schiffrin, a journalist, is a New Yorker. He is separated from his wife.
"One of the things that attracted me to Columbia was when I gave a series of lectures there and the audiences were in the hundreds," Mr. Stiglitz said. "That level of interest makes Columbia and New York very attractive."
Star economists in academia seldom shift universities, particularly if they hold professorships in top-tier schools like Stanford, and Mr. Stiglitz is clearly a star. As chief economist at the World Bank in the late 1990's, he took to jetting around the world, consulting with heads of state and ministers, and clashing with the International Monetary Fund over whether the austerity programs imposed by the I.M.F. on Southeast Asia and other developing countries did more harm to those countries than good. He found more harm.
As a Columbia professor, Mr. Stiglitz said that he would continue these travels, with the costs paid almost always by foundations or other groups, but by Columbia when necessary. "If the premier of China wanted to talk to me, I would be able to do it," Mr. Stiglitz said.
Such high-profile activity is bound to draw attention to the university's economics team. Until the 1960's, it had been ranked as top tier and it still includes several big names. But Mr. Stiglitz, who is 58, is the most prominent economist to shift to Columbia in more than a decade. His elaborate theories about imperfect markets — left to themselves, markets rarely produce optimum results, his research found — are now standard fare in economics courses.
Columbia tried unsuccessfully in 1998 to lure another star, Robert J. Barro, from Harvard University. The negotiations with Mr. Barro came apart after the financial package became public. The complex deal Mr. Barro had reportedly negotiated featured an eye-catching — and for Columbia, embarrassing — pay package of nearly $300,000, along with numerous perks and benefits, including a $55,000 university post for Mr. Barro's wife.
Harvard pushed to keep Mr. Barro, a conservative who has more faith in markets than Mr. Stiglitz, and he backed out of the Columbia deal.
Mr. Stiglitz said in an interview that he did not have to be lured. For professional and personal reasons, he sought to relocate to the Northeast from California. "After you have been in Washington and have been in international economics as I have in recent years," he said, "New York is just a very good place to be."
He had negotiated with Harvard and Yale University, but his preference was Columbia, he said. For most of the 1990's, he had been away from Stanford, anyway, serving in Washington as a member of President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, then as its chairman. He was chief economist at the World Bank from 1997 until December 1999, when he resigned. His contrarian views on austerity measures and bailouts had brought pressure from the Clinton administration for his departure.
For the last year he has taught mainly at the small campus that Stanford maintains in Washington.
Burned by the Barro experience, Columbia officials refused to discuss Mr. Stiglitz's pay and benefits package. Mr. Stiglitz said that he would earn more than $200,000 at Columbia — he declined to say how much more — for the nine-month academic year, during which he will teach three courses. Stanford
offered a similar salary for the coming academic year, he said. "The difference in pay and benefits at Stanford was actually very small."
Mr. Stiglitz's salary puts him in the top 1 percent among academic economists, excluding those employed in graduate business schools. For them, a $300,000 salary, or more, is not uncommon. At Columbia, three schools will share Mr. Stiglitz and support his tenured professorship: the liberal arts college, the business school and the School of International and Public Affairs.
Some universities pay an additional amount for the summer months, but Mr. Stiglitz devotes summers to projects financed by foundations, some of it research projects, and he has financing lined up, he said.
Beyond pay and the standard health and pension benefits, Mr. Stiglitz will enjoy other perks. Columbia will pay the costs of a full-time secretary and the services of two graduate students serving as research assistants. Mr. Stiglitz and Ms. Schiffrin will move into a university-owned three- or four-bedroom apartment, with much of the rent subsidized by Columbia.
And Columbia will provide some of the office space for the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a project that foundations pay for and Mr. Stiglitz directs. The project sponsors dialogues, often in developing countries, on policy issues of concern to these countries. "We went to Serbia," he said, "and talked about the lessons learned in privatization, so the failures would not have to be repeated." [end]