The bumpy ride of Joe Stiglitz

WHEN Joseph Stiglitz said in November that he would quit as the World Bank's top economist, plausible speculation said that he had been forced out. Mr Stiglitz had made a great nuisance of himself during his two years in the post, attracting attention with a series of speeches that rubbished the International Monetary Fund, especially for its policies in Russia and East Asia during the recent crises. That was bad enough, bearing in mind that the Fund and the Bank are supposedly sister institutions. But Mr Stiglitz also made time in his busy schedule to attack many of the Bank's programmes and the thinking that lies behind them. In short, he cast himself as a scourge of the Washington establishment. By the end, his boss, the hitherto-supportive James Wolfensohn, had turned less warm.