With international contributors, this second volume in Contemporary Issues, by Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Guzman, includes theoretical, empirical, and policy oriented chapters based on careful utilization of theory and data analysis.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. A recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979), he is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, and a former member and chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers. In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a think tank on international development based at Columbia University, USA. Martin Guzman is a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University Business School, USA, and Associate Professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is also a member of the INET Taskforce on Macroeconomic Externalities and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.