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It has long been recognized that an improved standard of living results from advances in technology, not from the accumulation of capital. It has also become clear that what truly separates developed from less-developed countries is not just a gap in resources or output but a gap in knowledge. In fact, the pace at which developing countries grow is largely a function of the pace at which they close that gap. Thus, to understand how countries grow and develop, it is essential to know how they learn and become more productive and what government can do to promote learning. In Creating a Learning Society, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald cast light on the significance of this insight for economic theory and policy.

William Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, lead a discussion on the idea of development as an authoritarian concept. The commentator for the talk was Gregory Mann, Associate Professor of History at Columbia. Michele Alacevich, Associate Director of Research Activities, Heyman Center for the Humanities and Diplomatische Akademie Wien, chaired the talk.

The relatively new field of inequality studies is gaining increasing momentum as economic disparity grows throughout the world, in advanced countries as well as less developed ones—especially in the United States.  Speakers Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University and the recipient of a John Bates Clark Medal and a Nobel Prize, James K. Galbraith, Professor of Government at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, and Branko Milanovic, Lead economist in the World Bank's research department, address the progressive emergence of this new discipline.