Joseph E. Stiglitz is an economist, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, now a professor at Columbia University. He is an outspoken critic of global economic policy.
Stiglitz received his B.A. from Amherst College, his Ph.D. from MIT, and was a Fulbright Scholar and Tapp Junior Research Fellow at Cambridge University. He was appointed professor of economics at Yale University in 1969, and then went on to teach economics at Princeton from 1979 to 1988. In 1988 he taught at Stanford. He helped to create a branch of economics known as "The Economics of Information", and received the John Bates Clark Award from the American Economic Association in 1979.
He served on the executive committee of the AEA from 1979 to 1993, and was elected vice president in 1985. He was a memeber of the Clinton Administration's Council of Economic Advisors, which he later became chairman of. In 1997 he became Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank.
Stiglitz publicly criticized many IMF decisions, and criticized global economics negotiations for not being open enough. He quit his job as Chief Economist at the World Bank in November 1999, so that he could voice his disagreements with the policy of the bank and the IMF openly. After this he gained favour with world trade protesters. He has written a number of articles which detail how global economic policy avoids democratic processes, and ignores the needs of the poor. In October it was announced he will receive the Nobel Prize in Economic Science.
Sources:
http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/offrep/lac/abcdlac/abcdlac4/agenda/biostig.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wbank/stigindx.htm
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/02/stiglitz/