By 4:00 p.m. yesterday, the 400-seat Hale Auditorium was overflowing with people. Cramming into the aisles and the doorways, students, professors and members of the general public waited in anticipation to hear the 2001 Nobel Prize winner and famous economist, Joseph Stiglitz, speak.

“A lot of us have looked forward to this all month — he’s an amazingly sharp and intelligent guy,” said Economics graduate student Farzana Afridi.

Stiglitz’s contributions to the field of economics have allowed him to be recognized worldwide. He is well known for helping create a new branch of economics known as, the “Economics of Information” which is used by policy analysts. Stiglitz has written books that have been translated into many languages for an international audience, including his international bestseller “Globalization and its Discontents.”

Stiglitz addressed the ideas in these books as well personal experiences in his speech on globalization last night. Hosted by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Stiglitz’s speech was part of a series of lectures funded by the Citigroup Foundation, honoring President Ford’s long affiliation with Citigroup.

With opinionated rhetoric and good humor, Stiglitz explained to an intrigued audience potential problems with globalization and the free market.

“Economic theory predicted the capital free market should lead to stabilization, but in reality it did not lead to economic growth or stabilization,” he said.

He said Third-World countries have instead been hurt by the opening of free markets, because they receive loans during good economic times and are forced to pay back loans during recessions.

“The general preset of banking is never lend to anyone who needs the money, so what happens is that when the economy is in a boom the bankers are shoveling money into the economy (of Third-World countries). But when the economy goes down they say we’re not sure you’re going to be able to repay us, we don’t trust you.” he said.

He went on to discuss problems with the International Monetary Fund — the international organization that manages global finances and gives loans to struggling countries. Stiglitz’s book “Globalization and its Discontents” argues that the IMF puts the interests of the United States over those of poorer countries, and he discussed this in his speech.

“The last head of the IMF said poverty was not his business,” he said.

But he conceded that there had been a change in attitude and the IMF was working more toward recognizing poverty.

Along with discussing debt relief, Stiglitz talked about what he said are problems with opening up the markets to trade. “It is one of the most pretentious areas of globalization, but the theory is everyone should be better off,” he said.

“Instead, it created anxiety everywhere in the world. Why were all these people better off and didn’t know it? Because in reality they were worse off,” Stiglitz said.

Stiglitz explained the problem with the trade market using cotton farmers. “The way you get subsidies is you grow more, so as these American farmers produce more, the price of cotton goes down and it hurts ten million cotton farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. So the poorer are made poorer and the rich are made richer,” he said. “In response, the U.S. Trade representative says to the Africans: ‘Why don’t you go into some other line of business?’ This is an area where there is no other line of business,” he said.

Stiglitz continued by discussing the Clinton administration’s difficulties in improving access to life-saving medicine and problems with the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“The problem with NAFTA is it is hundreds of pages that no one has time to read so bills get passed in the agreement that would not normally make it through legislation,” he said.

Stiglitz also talked about global stability. “The U.S. dollar is currently the most important reserve currency, but the system is unstable.”

The dollar, he explained, is no longer a secure store of value. “The dollar continues to weaken, and countries such as Japan are losing money by keeping reserve in dollars,” he said.

With a smile, he added, “We can convert our money to Euros, and I advise you to do so.”

Stiglitz concluded by stating, ”I remain hopeful that we will be able to make globalization work, and we will be able to reform. It will not be quick, and it will not be easy, and the process of reform may not in every respect be pleasant, but the alternatives are even worse.”