WASHINGTON -- Instead of funneling taxpayer money into big financial firms, the government should take the radical step of breaking them up into smaller, more transparent companies, top economists told lawmakers Tuesday.

"We have little to lose, and much to gain, by breaking up these behemoths, which are not just too big to fail, but also too big to save and too big to manage," said 2001 Nobel Prize recipient and Columbia University Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, one of the witnesses testifying before the Joint Economic Committee...