Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953)
is an American
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...
, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the
Graduate Center of the City University of New York
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the ...
, and a
columnist for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
In 2008, Krugman was the winner of the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
for his contributions to
New Trade Theory
New trade theory (NTT) is a collection of economic models in international trade theory which focuses on the role of increasing returns to scale and network effects, which were originally developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The main mo ...
and
New Economic Geography. The Prize Committee cited Krugman's work explaining the patterns of
international trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy)
In most countries, such trade represents a significant ...
and the geographic distribution of economic activity, by examining the effects of
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
and of consumer preferences for diverse goods and services.
[
Krugman was previously a professor of economics at ]MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
, and later at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
. He retired from Princeton in June 2015, and holds the title of professor emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
there. He also holds the title of Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...
. Krugman was President of the Eastern Economic Association
The ''Eastern Economic Journal'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of economics. It was established in 1973 and is published by Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the Eastern Economic Association. The editors-in-chief ...
in 2010, and is among the most influential economists in the world. He is known in academia for his work on international economics
International economics is concerned with the effects upon economic activity from international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the international institutions that affect them. It seeks to explain the patterns and ...
(including trade theory and international finance),[''Forbes'', October 13, 2008]
"Paul Krugman, Nobel"
economic geography, liquidity traps, and currency crises.
Krugman is the author or editor of 27 books, including scholarly works, textbooks, and books for a more general audience, and has published over 200 scholarly articles in professional journals and edited volumes. He has also written several hundred columns on economic and political issues for ''The New York Times'', ''Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'' and '' Slate''. A 2011 survey of economics professors named him their favorite living economist under the age of 60. According to the Open Syllabus Project
The Open Syllabus Project (OSP) is an online open-source platform that catalogs and analyzes millions of college syllabi. Founded by researchers from the American Assembly at Columbia University, the OSP has amassed the most extensive collecti ...
, Krugman is the second most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses. As a commentator, Krugman has written on a wide range of economic issues including income distribution
In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes ec ...
, taxation
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
, macroeconomics, and international economics. Krugman considers himself a modern liberal, referring to his books, his blog on ''The New York Times'', and his 2007 book '' The Conscience of a Liberal''. His popular commentary has attracted widespread attention and comments, both positive and negative.
Early life and education
Krugman was born to a Russian Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family, the son of Anita and David Krugman. In 1914, his maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, while in 1920, his paternal grandparents arrived from Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
. He was born in Albany, New York, spent several years of his childhood in the Upstate city of Utica, before growing up from age eight in Merrick, a hamlet in Nassau County. He graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore. According to Krugman, his interest in economics began with Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
, spouse =
, relatives =
, children = 2
, death_date =
, death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
, nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
's ''Foundation'' novels, in which the social scientists of the future use a new science of "psychohistory
Psychohistory is an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities. Its proponents claim to examine the "why" of history, especially the difference between stated intention and actual behavior. Psychobiography, chil ...
" to try to save civilization. Since present-day science fell far short of "psychohistory", Krugman turned to economics as the next best thing.
In 1974, Krugman earned his BA'' summa cum laude'' in economics from Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
, where he was a National Merit Scholar
The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded, not-for-profit organizati ...
. He then went on to pursue a PhD in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT). In 1977, he successfully completed his PhD in three years, with a thesis titled ''Essays on flexible exchange rates.'' While at MIT, he was part of a small group of MIT students sent to work for the Central Bank of Portugal for three months in the summer of 1976, during the chaotic aftermath of the Carnation Revolution.[
Krugman later praised his PhD thesis advisor, ]Rudi Dornbusch
Rüdiger Dornbusch (June 8, 1942 – July 25, 2002) was a German economist who worked in the United States for most of his career.
Early life and education
Dornbusch was born in Krefeld in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia. After completing his ...
, as "one of the great economics teachers of all time" and said that he "had the knack of inspiring students to pick up his enthusiasm and technique, but find their own paths". In 1978, Krugman presented a number of ideas to Dornbusch, who flagged as interesting the idea of a monopolistically competitive trade model. Encouraged, Krugman worked on it and later wrote, " knew within a few hours that I had the key to my whole career in hand".[ In that same year, Krugman wrote "]The Theory of Interstellar Trade
''The Theory of Interstellar Trade'' is a paper written in 1978 by the economist Paul Krugman. The paper was first published in March 2010 in the journal ''Economic Inquiry''. He described the paper as something he wrote to cheer himself up when h ...
", a tongue-in-cheek essay on computing interest rates on goods in transit near the speed of light. He says he wrote it to cheer himself up when he was "an oppressed assistant professor".
Academic career
Krugman became an assistant professor at Yale University in September 1977. He joined the faculty at MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
in 1979. From 1982 to 1983, Krugman spent a year working at the Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
as a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers. He rejoined MIT as a full professor in 1984. Krugman has also taught at Stanford, Yale, and the London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...
.
In 2000, Krugman joined Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
as Professor of Economics and International Affairs. He is also currently Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and a member of the Group of Thirty
The Group of Thirty, often abbreviated to G30, is an international body of financiers and academics which aims to deepen understanding of economic and financial issues and to examine consequences of decisions made in the public and private sec ...
international economic body. He has been a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...
since 1979.[ Krugman was President of the Eastern Economic Association in 2010.] In February 2014, he announced that he would be retiring from Princeton in June 2015 and that he would be joining the faculty at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the ...
.
Paul Krugman has written extensively on international economics, including international trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy)
In most countries, such trade represents a significant ...
, economic geography
Economic geography is the subfield of human geography which studies economic activity and factors affecting them. It can also be considered a subfield or method in economics.
There are four branches of economic geography.
There is,
primary secto ...
, and international finance
International finance (also referred to as international monetary economics or international macroeconomics) is the branch of financial economics broadly concerned with monetary and macroeconomic interrelations between two or more countries. Inter ...
. The Research Papers in Economics
Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in many countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics. The heart of the project is a decentralized database of working papers, preprints, ...
project ranks him among the world's most influential economists. Krugman's ''International Economics: Theory and Policy'', co-authored with Maurice Obstfeld
Maurice Moses "Maury" Obstfeld (born March 19, 1952) is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and previously Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson ...
, is a standard undergraduate textbook
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...
on international economics. He is also co-author, with Robin Wells
Robin Elizabeth Wells (born 1959) is an American economist. She is the co-author of several economics texts, mostly with her husband Paul Krugman.
Life and career
Wells received her BA from the University of Chicago and her PhD from the Universit ...
, of an undergraduate economics text which he says was strongly inspired by the first edition of Paul Samuelson
Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he " ...
's classic textbook. Krugman also writes on economic topics for the general public, sometimes on international economic topics but also on income distribution
In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes ec ...
and public policy
Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...
.
The Nobel Prize Committee
A Nobel Committee is a working body responsible for most of the work involved in selecting Nobel Prize laureates. There are five Nobel Committees, one for each Nobel Prize.
Four of these committees (for prizes in physics, chemistry, physiolo ...
stated that Krugman's main contribution is his analysis of the effects of economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
, combined with the assumption that consumers appreciate diversity
Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to:
Business
*Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce
*Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers
* ...
, on international trade and on the location of economic activity.[Nobel Prize Committee]
"The Prize in Economic Sciences 2008"
The importance of spatial issues in economics has been enhanced by Krugman's ability to popularize this complicated theory with the help of easy-to-read books and state-of-the-art syntheses. "Krugman was beyond doubt the key player in 'placing geographical analysis squarely in the economic mainstream' ... and in conferring it the central role it now assumes."[
]
New trade theory
Prior to Krugman's work, trade theory (see David Ricardo
David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a ...
and Heckscher–Ohlin model
The Heckscher–Ohlin model (, H–O model) is a general equilibrium mathematical model of international trade, developed by Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin at the Stockholm School of Economics. It builds on David Ricardo's theory of comparative ad ...
) emphasized trade based on the comparative advantage
In an economic model, agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade. Comp ...
of countries with very different characteristics, such as a country with a high agricultural productivity
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
trading agricultural products for industrial products from a country with a high industrial productivity. However, in the 20th century, an ever-larger share of trade occurred between countries with similar characteristics, which is difficult to explain by comparative advantage. Krugman's explanation of trade between similar countries was proposed in a 1979 paper in the ''Journal of International Economics
The ''Journal of International Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of economics. The journal publishes articles on both theoretical and empirical aspects of international economics. Various topics covered include trade pat ...
'', and involves two key assumptions: that consumers prefer a diverse choice of brands, and that production favors economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
. Consumers' preference for diversity explains the survival of different versions of cars like Volvo and BMW. However, because of economies of scale, it is not profitable to spread the production of Volvo
The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...
s all over the world; instead, it is concentrated in a few factories and therefore in a few countries (or maybe just one). This logic explains how each country may specialize in producing a few brands of any given type of product, instead of specializing in different types of products.
Krugman modeled a 'preference for diversity' by assuming a CES utility function like that in a 1977 paper by Avinash Dixit
Avinash Kamalakar Dixit (born 6 August 1944) is an Indian-American economist. He is the John J. F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University, and has been Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lin ...
and Joseph Stiglitz. Many models of international trade now follow Krugman's lead, incorporating economies of scale in production and a preference for diversity in consumption.[ This way of modeling trade has come to be called ]New Trade Theory
New trade theory (NTT) is a collection of economic models in international trade theory which focuses on the role of increasing returns to scale and network effects, which were originally developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The main mo ...
.[
Krugman's theory also took into account transportation costs, a key feature in producing the "]home market effect The home market effect is a hypothesized concentration of certain industries in large markets. The home market effect became part of New Trade Theory. Through trade theory, the home market effect is derived from models with returns to scale and t ...
", which would later feature in his work on the new economic geography. The home market effect "states that, ceteris paribus, the country with the larger demand for a good shall, at equilibrium, produce a more than proportionate share of that good and be a net exporter of it".[ The home market effect was an unexpected result, and Krugman initially questioned it, but ultimately concluded that the mathematics of the model were correct.][
When there are economies of scale in production, it is possible that countries may become ' locked into' disadvantageous patterns of trade. Krugman points out that although globalization has been positive on a whole, since the 1980s the process known as hyper-globalization has at least played a part in rising inequality. Nonetheless, trade remains beneficial in general, even between similar countries, because it permits firms to save on costs by producing at a larger, more efficient scale, and because it increases the range of brands available and sharpens the competition between firms. Krugman has usually been supportive of ]free trade
Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...
and globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...
. He has also been critical of industrial policy, which New Trade Theory suggests might offer nations rent-seeking
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth without creating new wealth by manipulating the social or political environment.
Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic effic ...
advantages if "strategic industries" can be identified, saying it's not clear that such identification can be done accurately enough to matter.
New economic geography
It took an interval of eleven years, but ultimately Krugman's work on New Trade Theory (NTT) converged to what is usually called the " new economic geography" (NEG), which Krugman began to develop in a seminal 1991 paper, "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography", published in the '' Journal of Political Economy''. In Krugman's own words, the passage from NTT to NEG was "obvious in retrospect; but it certainly took me a while to see it. ... The only good news was that nobody else picked up that $100 bill lying on the sidewalk in the interim."[Krugman (1999]
"Was it all in Ohlin?"
This would become Krugman's most-cited academic paper: by early 2009, it had 857 citations, more than double his second-ranked paper. Krugman called the paper "the love of my life in academic work".[Krugman PR (2008)]
, December 6, 2008. Stockholm, Sweden.
The "home market effect" that Krugman discovered in NTT also features in NEG, which interprets agglomeration
Agglomeration may refer to:
* Urban agglomeration, in standard English
* Megalopolis, in Chinese English, as defined in China's ''Standard for basic terminology of urban planning'' (GB/T 50280—98). Also known as " city cluster".
* Economies of ag ...
"as the outcome of the interaction of increasing returns, trade costs and factor price differences".[ If trade is largely shaped by ]economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
, as Krugman's trade theory argues, then those economic regions with most production will be more profitable and will therefore attract even more production. That is, NTT implies that instead of spreading out evenly around the world, production will tend to concentrate in a few countries, regions, or cities, which will become densely populated but will also have higher levels of income.
Agglomeration and economies of scale
Manufacturing is characterized by increasing returns to scale and less restrictive and expansive land qualifications as compared to agricultural uses. So, geographically where can manufacturing be predicted to develop? Krugman states that manufacturing's geographical range is inherently limited by economies of scale, but also that manufacturing will establish and accrue itself in an area of high demand. Production that occurs adjacent to demand will result in lower transportation costs, but demand, as a result, will be greater due to concentrated nearby production. These forces act upon one another simultaneously, producing manufacturing and population agglomeration. Population will increase in these areas due to the more highly developed infrastructure and nearby production, therefore lowering the expense of goods, while economies of scale provide varied choices of goods and services. These forces will feed into each other until the greater portion of the urban population and manufacturing hubs are concentrated into a relatively insular geographic area.
International finance
Krugman has also been influential in the field of international finance
International finance (also referred to as international monetary economics or international macroeconomics) is the branch of financial economics broadly concerned with monetary and macroeconomic interrelations between two or more countries. Inter ...
. As a graduate student, Krugman visited the Federal Reserve Board
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the Federal Reserve Board, is the main governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It is charged with overseeing the Federal Reserve Banks and with helping implement the m ...
where Stephen Salant
Stephen W. Salant (born c. 1945) is an economist who has done extensive research in applied microeconomics (mostly in the fields of natural resources and industrial organization). His 1975 model of speculative attacks in the gold market (with Da ...
and Dale Henderson were completing their discussion paper on speculative attacks In economics, a speculative attack is a precipitous selling of untrustworthy assets by previously inactive speculators and the corresponding acquisition of some valuable assets (currencies, gold). The first model of a speculative attack was contain ...
in the gold market. Krugman adapted their model for the foreign exchange market, resulting in a 1979 paper on currency crises in the ''Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking
The ''Journal of Money, Credit and Banking'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering monetary and financial issues in macroeconomics. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Ohio State University Department of Economics. The editor ...
'', which showed that misaligned fixed exchange rate
A fixed exchange rate, often called a pegged exchange rate, is a type of exchange rate regime in which a currency's value is fixed or pegged by a monetary authority against the value of another currency, a basket of other currencies, or another ...
regimes are unlikely to end smoothly but instead end in a sudden speculative attack In economics, a speculative attack is a precipitous selling of untrustworthy assets by previously inactive speculators and the corresponding acquisition of some valuable assets ( currencies, gold). The first model of a speculative attack was contai ...
. Krugman's paper is considered one of the main contributions to the 'first generation' of currency crisis
A currency crisis is a type of financial crisis, and is often associated with a real economic crisis. A currency crisis raises the probability of a banking crisis or a default crisis. During a currency crisis the value of foreign denominated deb ...
models, and it is his second-most-cited paper (457 citations as of early 2009).[
In response to the ]global financial crisis of 2008
Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003
* ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007
* ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989
* ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015
* Bruno ...
, Krugman proposed, in an informal "mimeo" style of publication, an "international finance multiplier", to help explain the unexpected speed with which the global crisis had occurred. He argued that when, "highly leveraged financial institutions LIs which do a lot of cross-border investment ... lose heavily in one market ... they find themselves undercapitalized, and have to sell off assets across the board. This drives down prices, putting pressure on the balance sheets of other HLIs, and so on." Such a rapid contagion had hitherto been considered unlikely because of "decoupling" in a globalized economy. He first announced that he was working on such a model on his blog, on October 5, 2008. Within days of its appearance, it was being discussed on some popular economics-oriented blogs.
The note was soon being cited in papers (draft and published) by other economists, even though it had not itself been through ordinary peer review processes.
Macroeconomics and fiscal policy
Krugman has done much to revive discussion of the liquidity trap as a topic in economics. He recommended pursuing aggressive fiscal policy and unconventional monetary policy
Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money supply, often a ...
to counter Japan's lost decade in the 1990s, arguing that the country was mired in a Keynesian liquidity trap.[Krugman, Paul (2000)]
"Thinking About the Liquidity Trap"
, ''Journal of the Japanese and International Economies'', v.14, no.4, Dec 2000, pp. 221–37. The debate he started at that time over liquidity traps and what policies best address them continues in the economics literature.
Krugman had argued in ''The Return of Depression Economics'' that Japan was in a liquidity trap in the late 1990s, since the central bank
A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union,
and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central b ...
could not drop interest rates any lower to escape economic stagnation. The core of Krugman's policy proposal for addressing Japan's liquidity trap was inflation targeting
In macroeconomics, inflation targeting is a monetary policy where a central bank follows an explicit target for the inflation rate for the medium-term and announces this inflation target to the public. The assumption is that the best that moneta ...
, which, he argued "most nearly approaches the usual goal of modern stabilization policy, which is to provide adequate demand in a clean, unobtrusive way that does not distort the allocation of resources".[ The proposal appeared first in a web posting on his academic site.]["Japan's Trap", May 2008]
Retrieved 08-22-2009 This mimeo-draft was soon cited, but was also misread by some as repeating his earlier advice that Japan's best hope was in "turning on the printing presses", as recommended by Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...
, John Makin, and others.
Krugman has since drawn parallels between Japan's 'lost decade' and the late 2000s recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...
, arguing that expansionary fiscal policy is necessary as the major industrialized economies are mired in a liquidity trap. In response to economists who point out that the Japanese economy
The economy of Japan is a highly developed social market economy, often referred to as an East Asian model. It is the third-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). It is the world's seco ...
recovered despite not pursuing his policy prescriptions, Krugman maintains that it was an export-led boom that pulled Japan out of its economic slump in the late-90s, rather than reforms of the financial system.
Krugman was one of the most prominent advocates of the 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence, so much so that economics commentator Noah Smith referred to it as the "Krugman insurgency".
His view that most peer-reviewed macroeconomic research since the mid-1960s is wrong, preferring simpler models developed in the 1930s, has been criticized by some modern economists, like John H. Cochrane. In June 2012, Krugman and Richard Layard
Peter Richard Grenville Layard, Baron Layard FBA (born 15 March 1934) is a British labour economist, currently working as programme director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.
Layard was Senior Research ...
launched ''A manifesto for economic sense'', where they call for greater use of fiscal stimulus policy to reduce unemployment and foster growth. The manifesto received over four thousand signatures within two days of its launch, and has attracted both positive and critical responses.
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
Krugman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
(informally the Nobel Prize in Economics), the sole recipient for 2008. This prize includes an award of about $1.4 million and was given to Krugman for his work associated with New Trade Theory
New trade theory (NTT) is a collection of economic models in international trade theory which focuses on the role of increasing returns to scale and network effects, which were originally developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The main mo ...
and the New Economic Geography. In the words of the prize committee, "By having integrated economies of scale into explicit general equilibrium
In economics, general equilibrium theory attempts to explain the behavior of supply, demand, and prices in a whole economy with several or many interacting markets, by seeking to prove that the interaction of demand and supply will result in an ov ...
models, Paul Krugman has deepened our understanding of the determinants of trade and the location of economic activity."
Awards
* 1991, American Economic Association, John Bates Clark Medal
The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge." The award is named after the ...
.Avinash Dixit
Avinash Kamalakar Dixit (born 6 August 1944) is an Indian-American economist. He is the John J. F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University, and has been Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lin ...
, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1993), pp. 173–88
'' In Honor of Paul Krugman: Winner of the John Bates Clark Medal''
, Retrieved March 28, 2007. Since it was awarded to only one person, once every two years (prior to 2009), ''The Economist'' has described the Clark Medal as 'slightly harder to get than a Nobel prize'.
* 1992, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
(AAAS).[
* 1995, Adam Smith Award of the ]National Association for Business Economics
The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) is the largest international association of applied economists, strategists, academics, and policy-makers committed to the application of economics. Founded in 1959, it is one of the member o ...
* 1998, Doctor ''honoris causa'' in Economics awarded by Free University of Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...
Freie Universität Berlin in Germany
* 2000, H.C. Recktenwald Prize in Economics, awarded by University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
in Germany.
* 2002, ''Editor and Publisher
''Editor & Publisher'' (''E&P'') is an American monthly trade news magazine covering the newspaper industry. Published since 1901, ''Editor & Publisher'' is the self-described "bible of the newspaper industry."
Originally based in New York City, ...
'', Columnist of the Year.Mother Jones
Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...
:
Paul Krugman
.'', August 7, 2005. Retrieved March 28, 2007.
* 2004, Fundación Príncipe de Asturias (Spain), Prince of Asturias Awards
The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios Príncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...
in Social Sciences.[''Paul Krugman''](_blank)
, 2004. Retrieved March 28, 2007.
* 2004, Doctor of Humane Letters ''honoris causa'', Haverford College
* 2008, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for Krugman's contributions to New Trade Theory
New trade theory (NTT) is a collection of economic models in international trade theory which focuses on the role of increasing returns to scale and network effects, which were originally developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The main mo ...
. He became the twelfth John Bates Clark Medal
The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge." The award is named after the ...
winner to be awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize.
* 2010, Howland Memorial Prize The Henry Howland Memorial Prize at Yale was created in 1915 for a "citizen of any country in recognition of some achievement of marked distinction in the field of literature or fine arts or the science of government." The idealistic quality of the ...
, awarded by Yale University
* 2011, EPI Distinguished Economist Award.[
]
* 2011 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary
* 2012, Doctor honoris causa
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad ho ...
from the Universidade de Lisboa
The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, t ...
, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
The Technical University of Lisbon (UTL; pt, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, ) was a Portuguese public university. It was created in 1930 in Lisbon, as a confederation of preexisting schools, and comprised the faculties and institutes of vete ...
and Universidade Nova de Lisboa
NOVA University Lisbon ( pt, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, ), or just NOVA, is a Portuguese public university whose rectorate is located in Campolide, Lisbon. Founded in 1973, it is the newest of the public universities in the Portuguese capital c ...
* 2013, Doctor of Laws, honoris causa conferred by the University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
, Toronto, Canada
* 2014, recipient of the Literary and Historical Society (University College Dublin)
The Literary and Historical Society (L&H) is the oldest society in University College Dublin (UCD), which according to its constitution is the 'College Debating Union'. Founded in 1855 by Cardinal John Henry Newman, it is one of the most well-known ...
's James Joyce Award
The James Joyce Award, also known as the Honorary Fellowship of the Society, is an award given by the Literary and Historical Society (L&H) of University College Dublin (UCD) for those who have achieved outstanding success in their given field; r ...
in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the economic sciences.
* 2014, recipient of the Green Templeton College, Oxford
Green Templeton College (GTC) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. The college is located on the previous Green College site on Woodstock Road next to the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter in North Oxford an ...
's Sanjaya Lall Visiting Professorship of Business and Development, Trinity Term 2014, in recognition of his outstanding international reputation in scholarship and research in the field of Development Economics and Business.
* 2016, Doctor of Letters, honoris causa conferred by the University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, Oxford, UK
A May 2011 Hamilton College
Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...
analysis of 26 politicians, journalists, and media commentators who made predictions in major newspaper columns or television news shows from September 2007 to December 2008 found that Krugman was the most accurate. Only nine of the prognosticators predicted more accurately than chance, two were significantly less accurate, and the remaining 14 were no better or worse than a coin flip. Krugman was correct in 15 out of 17 predictions, compared to 9 out of 11 for the next most accurate media figure, Maureen Dowd
Maureen Brigid Dowd (; born January 14, 1952) is an American columnist for ''The New York Times'' and an author.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Dowd worked for ''The Washington Star'' and ''Time'', writing news, sports and feature articles. ...
.
Krugman was elected to the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 2011.
'' Foreign Policy'' named Krugman one of its 2012 FP Top 100 Global Thinkers "for wielding his acid pen against austerity".
Author
In the 1990s, besides academic books and textbooks, Krugman increasingly began writing books for a general audience on issues he considered important for public policy. In ''The Age of Diminished Expectations'' (1990), he wrote in particular about the increasing US income inequality in the "New Economy
The New Economy refers to the ongoing development of the American economic system. It evolved from the notions of the classical economy via the transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy, and has been driven by ...
" of the 1990s. He attributes the rise in income inequality in part to changes in technology, but principally to a change in political atmosphere which he attributes to Movement Conservatives.
In September 2003, Krugman published a collection of his columns under the title, '' The Great Unraveling'', about the Bush administration's economic and foreign policies and the US economy in the early 2000s. His columns argued that the large deficits during that time were generated by the Bush administration as a result of decreasing taxes on the rich, increasing public spending, and fighting the Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
. Krugman wrote that these policies were unsustainable in the long run and would eventually generate a major economic crisis. The book was a best-seller.['']The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
'', November 13, 2003
"Paul Krugman, one-handed economist"
[Krugman, Paul, '']Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
''. December 14, 2006
"The Great Wealth Transfer"
In 2007, Krugman published '' The Conscience of a Liberal'', whose title refers to Barry Goldwater's '' Conscience of a Conservative''.["Nobelpristagaren i ekonomi 2008: Paul Krugman"](_blank)
, speech by Paul Krugman (Retrieved December 26, 2008) 00:43 "The title of The Conscience of a Liberal ... is a reference to a book published almost 50 years ago in the United States called The ''Conscience of a Conservative'' by Barry Goldwater. That book is often taken to be the origin, the start, of a movement that ended up dominating U.S. politics that reached its first pinnacle under Ronald Reagan and then reached its full control of the U.S. government for most of the last eight years." It details the history of wealth and income gaps in the United States in the 20th century. The book describes how the gap between rich and poor declined greatly during the middle of the century, and then widened in the last two decades to levels higher even than in the 1920s. In ''Conscience'', Krugman argues that government policies played a much greater role than commonly thought both in reducing inequality in the 1930s through 1970s and in increasing it in the 1980s through the present, and criticizes the Bush administration for implementing policies that Krugman believes widened the gap between the rich and poor.
Krugman also argued that Republicans owed their electoral successes to their ability to exploit the race issue to win political dominance of the South.Michael Tomasky
Michael John Tomasky (born October 13, 1960) is an American columnist, progressive commentator, and author. He is the editor of ''The New Republic'' and editor in chief of ''Democracy''. He has been a special correspondent for ''Newsweek'', ''T ...
, ''The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', November 22, 2007
"The Partisan"
Krugman argues that Ronald Reagan had used the "Southern Strategy
In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans. As the civil rights movement and dismantling o ...
" to signal sympathy for racism without saying anything overtly racist, citing as an example Reagan's coining of the term "welfare queen
A "welfare queen" is a derogatory term used in the United States to refer to women who allegedly misuse or collect excessive welfare payments through fraud, child endangerment, or manipulation. Reporting on welfare fraud began during the early 19 ...
".
In his book, Krugman proposed a "new New Deal", which included placing more emphasis on social and medical programs and less on national defense. In his review of ''Conscience of a Liberal'', the liberal journalist and author Michael Tomasky
Michael John Tomasky (born October 13, 1960) is an American columnist, progressive commentator, and author. He is the editor of ''The New Republic'' and editor in chief of ''Democracy''. He has been a special correspondent for ''Newsweek'', ''T ...
credited Krugman with a commitment "to accurate history even when some fudging might be in order for the sake of political expediency". In a review for ''The New York Times'', Pulitzer prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy stated: "Krugman’s chapter on the imperative need for health care reform is the best in this book, a rueful reminder of the kind of skilled and accessible economic analysis of which he is capable".
In late 2008, Krugman published a substantial updating of an earlier work, entitled ''The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008''. In the book, he discusses the failure of the United States regulatory system to keep pace with a financial system increasingly out-of-control, and the causes of and possible ways to contain the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. In 2012, Krugman published '' End This Depression Now!'', a book which argues that looking at the available historical economic data, fiscal cuts and austerity measures only deprive the economy of valuable funds that can circulate and further add to a poor economy – people cannot spend, and markets cannot thrive if there is not enough consumption and there cannot be sufficient consumption if there is large unemployment. He argues that while it is necessary to cut debt, it is the worst time to do so in an economy that has just suffered the most severe of financial shocks, and must be done instead when an economy is near full-employment when the private sector can withstand the burden of decreased government spending and austerity. Failure to stimulate the economy either by public or private sectors will only unnecessarily lengthen the current economic depression and make it worse.
Commentator
Martin Wolf
Martin Harry Wolf (born 16 August 1946 in London) is a British journalist of Austrian-Dutch descent who focuses on economics. He is the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the ''Financial Times''.
Early life
Wolf was born in ...
has written that Krugman is both the "most hated and most admired columnist in the US".
Economist J. Peter Neary has noted that Krugman "has written on a wide range of topics, always combining one of the best prose styles in the profession with an ability to construct elegant, insightful and useful models". Neary added that "no discussion of his work could fail to mention his transition from Academic Superstar to Public Intellectual. Through his extensive writings, including a regular column for ''The New York Times'', monographs and textbooks at every level, and books on economics and current affairs for the general public ... he has probably done more than any other writer to explain economic principles to a wide audience."[ Krugman has been described as the most controversial economist in his generation][ and according to ]Michael Tomasky
Michael John Tomasky (born October 13, 1960) is an American columnist, progressive commentator, and author. He is the editor of ''The New Republic'' and editor in chief of ''Democracy''. He has been a special correspondent for ''Newsweek'', ''T ...
since 1992 he has moved "from being a center-left scholar to being a liberal polemicist".
From the mid-1990s onwards, Krugman wrote for ''Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'' (1997–99)[''Princeton Weekly Bulletin'', October 20, 2008]
"Biography of Paul Krugman"
, 98(7) and '' Slate'' (1996–99),[ and then for '' The Harvard Business Review'', '' Foreign Policy'', '']The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
'', '' Harper's'', and ''Washington Monthly
''Washington Monthly'' is a bimonthly, nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine is known for its annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which serves as an alterna ...
''. In this period Krugman critiqued various positions commonly taken on economic issues from across the political spectrum, from protectionism
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulatio ...
and opposition to the World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...
on the left to supply-side economics on the right.[
During the 1992 presidential campaign, Krugman praised ]Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
's economic plan in ''The New York Times'', and Clinton's campaign used some of Krugman's work on income inequality
There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...
. At the time, it was considered likely that Clinton would offer him a position in the new administration, but allegedly Krugman's volatility and outspokenness caused Clinton to look elsewhere. Krugman later said that he was "temperamentally unsuited for that kind of role. You have to be very good at people skills, biting your tongue when people say silly things."['']New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British Political magazine, political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney Webb, Sidney and Beatrice ...
'', February 16, 2004
"NS Profile – Paul Krugman"
In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Krugman added, "you have to be reasonably organized ... I can move into a pristine office and within three days it will look like a grenade went off."
In 1999, near the height of the dot com boom
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...
, ''The New York Times'' approached Krugman to write a bi-weekly column on "the vagaries of business and economics in an age of prosperity".[ His first columns in 2000 addressed business and economic issues, but as the 2000 US presidential campaign progressed, Krugman increasingly focused on ]George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
's policy proposals. According to Krugman, this was partly due to "the silence of the media – those 'liberal media' conservatives complain about ..."[ Krugman accused Bush of repeatedly misrepresenting his proposals, and criticized the proposals themselves.][ After Bush's election, and his perseverance with his proposed tax cut in the midst of the slump (which Krugman argued would do little to help the economy but substantially raise the fiscal deficit), Krugman's columns grew angrier and more focused on the administration. As ]Alan Blinder
Alan Stuart Blinder (, born October 14, 1945) is an American economics professor at Princeton University and is listed among the most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. He is a leading macroeconomist, politically liber ...
put it in 2002, "There's been a kind of missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
quality to his writing since then ... He's trying to stop something now, using the power of the pen."[ Partly as a result, Krugman's twice-weekly column on the Op-Ed page of ''The New York Times'' has made him, according to ]Nicholas Confessore
Nicholas Confessore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political correspondent on the National Desk of ''The New York Times''.
Early life
Confessore grew up in New York City and attended Hunter College High School. He was a politics major at Princet ...
, "the most important political columnist in America ... he is almost alone in analyzing the most important story in politics in recent years – the seamless melding of corporate, class, and political party interests at which the Bush administration excels." In an interview in late 2009, Krugman said his missionary zeal had changed in the post-Bush era and he described the Obama administration as "good guys but not as forceful as I'd like ... When I argue with them in my column this is a serious discussion. We really are in effect speaking across the transom here." Krugman says he's more effective at driving change outside the administration than inside it, "now, I'm trying to make this progressive moment in American history a success. So that's where I'm pushing."
Krugman's columns have drawn criticism as well as praise. A 2003 article in ''The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
'' questioned Krugman's "growing tendency to attribute all the world's ills to George Bush
George Bush most commonly refers to:
* George H. W. Bush (1924–2018), 41st president of the United States and father of the 43rd president
* George W. Bush (born 1946), 43rd president of the United States and son of the 41st president
Georg ...
", citing critics who felt that "his relentless partisanship is getting in the way of his argument" and claiming errors of economic and political reasoning in his columns.[ ]Daniel Okrent
Daniel Okrent (born April 2, 1948) is an American writer and editor. He is best known for having served as the first public editor of ''The New York Times'' newspaper, inventing Rotisserie League Baseball, and for writing several books (such as ...
, a former ''The New York Times'' ombudsman, in his farewell column, criticized Krugman for what he said was "the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults".[
Krugman's ''New York Times'' blog is "The Conscience of a Liberal", devoted largely to economics and politics.
Five days after 9/11 terrorist attacks, Krugman argued in his column that the calamity was "partly self-inflicted", citing poor pay and training for airport security driven by the transfer of responsibility for airport security from government to airlines. His column provoked an angry response and ''The New York Times'' was flooded with complaints. According to ]Larissa MacFarquhar
Larissa MacFarquhar is an American writer known for her profiles in ''The New Yorker''.
She is the daughter of the sinologist Roderick MacFarquhar. She was born in London and moved to the United States at the age of 16.
MacFarquhar has been a s ...
of ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', while some people thought that he was too partisan to be a columnist for ''The New York Times'', he was revered on the left. Similarly, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 on the United States Krugman again provoked a controversy by accusing on his ''New York Times'' blog former U.S. President George W. Bush and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani of rushing "to cash in on the horror" after the attacks and describing the anniversary as "an occasion for shame".
Krugman was noteworthy for his fierce opposition to the 2016 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. On January 19, 2016, he wrote an article which criticized Bernie Sanders for his perceived lack of political realism, compared Sanders' plans for healthcare and financial reform unfavorably to those of Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
, and cited criticisms of Sanders from other liberal policy wonks like Mike Konczal and Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein (born May 10, 1984) is an American journalist, political analyst, ''New York Times'' columnist, and the host of ''The Ezra Klein Show'' podcast. He is a co-founder of '' Vox'' and formerly served as the website's editor-at-large. He h ...
. Later, Krugman wrote an article which accused Sanders of " oingfor easy slogans over hard thinking" and attacking Hillary Clinton in a way that was "just plain dishonest".
On the 12 July 2016, Krugman tweeted "leprechaun economics
Leprechaun economics was a term coined by economist Paul Krugman to describe the 26.3 per cent rise in Irish 2015 GDP, later revised to 34.4 per cent, in a 12 July 2016 publication by the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO), restating 2015 ...
", in response to Central Statistics Office (Ireland) data that 2015 GDP grew 26.3% and 2015 GNP grew 18.7%. The leprechaun economics affair (proved in 2018 to be Apple restructuring its double Irish
The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits. It was the largest tax ...
subsidiaries), led to the Central Bank of Ireland introducing a new economic statistic, Modified gross national income
Modified gross national income, Modified GNI or GNI* was created by the Central Bank of Ireland in February 2017 as a new way to measure the Irish economy, and Irish indebtedness, due to the increasing distortion that the base erosion and prof ...
(or GNI*) to better measure the Irish economy (2016 Irish GDP is 143% of 2016 Irish GNI*). The term leprechaun economics has since been used by Krugman, and others, to describe distorted/unsound economic data.
Krugman’s use of the term leprechaun to refer to Ireland and its people has raised rebuke. In June 2021, Krugman wrote an article titled, "Yellen's New Alliance Against Leprechauns". Following the article, the Irish Ambassador to the US, Daniel Mulhall
Daniel Mulhall (born 8 April 1955) is a retired Irish diplomat and a former Ambassador of Ireland to the United States. He has also been Ireland's Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Germany and Malaysia.
Education
Born in Waterford, Ireland, Mul ...
, wrote a letter to the his publisher saying, "This is not the first time your columnist has used the word 'leprechaun' when referring to Ireland, and I see it as my duty to point out that this represents an unacceptable slur."
Krugman has harshly criticized the Trump administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...
. He has also remarked several times on how Trump tempts him to assume the worst, such that he has to be careful to check his personal beliefs against the weight of evidence.
East Asian growth
In a 1994 '' Foreign Affairs'' article, Paul Krugman argued that it was a myth that the economic successes of the East Asian 'tigers' constituted an economic miracle. He argued that their rise was fueled by mobilizing resources and that their growth rates would inevitably slow. His article helped popularize the argument made by Lawrence Lau
Lawrence Lau Juen-yee, GBS, JP (; born 1944) is a Hong Kong economist and the former Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was a non-official member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2012. Before joinin ...
and Alwyn Young Alwyn Young is a professor of economics and the Leili & Johannes Huth Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He held a named chair at the University of Chicago and was on the faculty at Boston University and the MIT Sl ...
, among others, that the growth of economies in East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...
was not the result of new and original economic models, but rather from high capital investment
Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort.
In finance, the purpose of investing i ...
and increasing labor force participation
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...
, and that total factor productivity had not increased. Krugman argued that in the long term, only increasing total factor productivity
In economics, total-factor productivity (TFP), also called multi-factor productivity, is usually measured as the ratio of aggregate output (e.g., GDP) to aggregate inputs. Under some simplifying assumptions about the production technology, growt ...
can lead to sustained economic growth. Krugman's article was highly criticized in many Asian countries when it first appeared, and subsequent studies disputed some of Krugman's conclusions. However, it also stimulated a great deal of research, and may have caused the Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
government to provide incentives for technological progress.
During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Krugman advocated currency controls
Foreign exchange controls are various forms of controls imposed by a government on the purchase/sale of foreign currency, currencies by residents, on the purchase/sale of local currency by nonresidents, or the transfers of any currency across na ...
as a way to mitigate the crisis. Writing in a ''Fortune'' magazine article, he suggested exchange controls as "a solution so unfashionable, so stigmatized, that hardly anyone has dared suggest it". Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
was the only country that adopted such controls, and although the Malaysian government
The Government of Malaysia, officially the Federal Government of Malaysia ( ms, Kerajaan Persekutuan Malaysia), is based in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya with the exception of the legislative branch, which is located in Kuala Lumpur. Mala ...
credited its rapid economic recovery on currency controls, the relationship is disputed. An empirical study found that the Malaysian policies produced faster economic recovery and smaller declines in employment and real wages. Krugman later stated that the controls might not have been necessary at the time they were applied, but that nevertheless "Malaysia has proved a point – namely, that controlling capital in a crisis is at least feasible." Krugman more recently pointed out that emergency capital controls have even been endorsed by the IMF, and are no longer considered radical policy.
U.S. economic policies
In the early 2000s, Krugman repeatedly criticized the Bush tax cuts
The phrase Bush tax cuts refers to changes to the United States tax code passed originally during the presidency of George W. Bush and extended during the presidency of Barack Obama, through:
* Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act o ...
, both before and after they were enacted. Krugman argued that the tax cuts enlarged the budget deficit without improving the economy, and that they enriched the wealthy – worsening income distribution
In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes ec ...
in the US. Krugman advocated lower interest rates (to promote investment and spending on housing and other durable goods), and increased government spending on infrastructure, military, and unemployment benefits, arguing that these policies would have a larger stimulus effect, and unlike permanent tax cuts, would only temporarily increase the budget deficit. In addition, he was against Bush's proposal to privatize social security.
In August 2005, after Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. ...
expressed concern over housing markets, Krugman criticized Greenspan's earlier reluctance to regulate the mortgage and related financial markets, arguing that "e's
is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and drawn by Satoru Yuiga. It was originally serialized in ''Monthly GFantasy'' from 1997 through 2005, and later published in 16 ''tankōbon'' volumes by Square Enix from March 18, 2003 to Februa ...
like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then – after the horse is gone – delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up." Krugman has repeatedly expressed his view that Greenspan and Phil Gramm are the two individuals most responsible for causing the subprime crisis
The United States subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 that contributed to the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. It was triggered by a large decline in US home prices after the coll ...
. Krugman points to Greenspan and Gramm for the key roles they played in keeping derivatives
The derivative of a function is the rate of change of the function's output relative to its input value.
Derivative may also refer to:
In mathematics and economics
* Brzozowski derivative in the theory of formal languages
* Formal derivative, an ...
, financial markets, and investment bank
Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort.
In finance, the purpose of investing i ...
s unregulated, and to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Great Depression era safeguards that prevented commercial bank
A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit.
It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with co ...
s, investment banks and insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...
companies from merging.
Krugman has also been critical of some of the Obama administration's economic policies. He has criticized the Obama stimulus plan as being too small and inadequate given the size of the economy and the banking rescue plan as misdirected; Krugman wrote in ''The New York Times'': "an overwhelming majority f the American publicbelieves that the government is spending too much to help large financial institutions. This suggests that the administration's money-for-nothing financial policy will eventually deplete its political capital." In particular, he considered the Obama administration's actions to prop up the US financial system in 2009 to be impractical and unduly favorable to Wall Street bankers.Evan Thomas
Evan Welling Thomas III (born April 25, 1951) is an American journalist, historian, and author. He is the author of nine books, including two ''New York Times'' bestsellers.
Early life and career
Thomas was born in Huntington, New York, and r ...
, ''Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
'', April 6, 2009
"Obama's Nobel Headache"
In anticipation of President Obama's Job Summit in December 2009, Krugman said in a Fresh Dialogues interview, "This jobs summit can't be an empty exercise ... he can't come out with a proposal for $10 or $20 Billion of stuff because people will view that as a joke. There has to be a significant job proposal ... I have in mind something like $300 Billion."
Krugman has recently criticized China's exchange rate policy, which he believes to be a significant drag on global economic recovery from the Late-2000s recession, and he has advocated a "surcharge" on Chinese imports to the US in response. Jeremy Warner of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' accused Krugman of advocating a return to self-destructive protectionism
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulatio ...
.
In April 2010, as the Senate began considering new financial regulations, Krugman argued that the regulations should not only regulate financial innovation, but also tax financial-industry profits and remuneration. He cited a paper by Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny
Robert Ward Vishny (born c. 1959) is an American economist and is the Myron S. Scholes Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor o ...
released the previous week, which concludes that most innovation was in fact about "providing investors with false substitutes for raditionalassets like bank deposits", and once investors realize the sheer number of securities that are unsafe a "flight to safety" occurs which necessarily leads to "financial fragility".
In his June 28, 2010 column in ''The New York Times'', in light of the recent G-20 Toronto Summit, Krugman criticized world leaders for agreeing to halve deficits by 2013. Krugman claimed that these efforts could lead the global economy into the early stages of a "third depression" and leave "millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs". He advocated instead the continued stimulus of economies to foster greater growth.
In a 2014 review of Thomas Piketty
Thomas Piketty (; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial Professor of Economics in the I ...
's ''Capital in the Twenty-First Century
''Capital in the Twenty-First Century'' (french: Le Capital au XXIe siècle) is a book written by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. It was initially ...
'' he stated we are in a Second Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...
.
Economic views
Keynesian economics
Krugman identifies as a Keynesian
Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output an ...
and a saltwater economist, and he has criticized the freshwater school on macroeconomics.[
][Krugman, Paul. (2009-9-2)]
"How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?"
. ''The New York Times''. Retrieved October 9, 2009. Although he has used New Keynesian
New Keynesian economics is a school of macroeconomics that strives to provide microeconomic foundations for Keynesian economics. It developed partly as a response to criticisms of Keynesian macroeconomics by adherents of new classical macroec ...
theory in his work, he has also criticized it for lacking predictive power and for hewing to ideas like the efficient-market hypothesis
The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted bas ...
and rational expectations
In economics, "rational expectations" are model-consistent expectations, in that agents inside the model are assumed to "know the model" and on average take the model's predictions as valid. Rational expectations ensure internal consistency i ...
.[ Since the 1990s, he has promoted the practical use of the IS-LM model of the neoclassical synthesis, pointing out its relative simplicity compared to New Keynesian models, and its continued currency in economic policy analysis.]
In the wake of the 2007–2009 financial crisis he has remarked that he is "gravitating towards a Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in m ...
-Fisher
Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral.
Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to:
Places
Australia
*Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland
*Elect ...
- Minsky view of macroeconomics".[
] Post-Keynesian
Post-Keynesian economics is a school of economic thought with its origins in '' The General Theory'' of John Maynard Keynes, with subsequent development influenced to a large degree by Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney ...
observers cite commonalities between Krugman's views and those of the Post-Keynesian
Post-Keynesian economics is a school of economic thought with its origins in '' The General Theory'' of John Maynard Keynes, with subsequent development influenced to a large degree by Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney ...
school, although Krugman has been critical of some Post-Keynesian economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...
– whose works ''The New Industrial State
''The New Industrial State'' is a 1967 book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Three revised editions appeared in 1972, 1978 and 1985.
Discussion
In it, Galbraith asserts that within the industrial sectors of modern capitalist societies, the traditiona ...
'' (1967) and ''Economics in Perspective'' (1987) Krugman has referred to as not "real economic theory" and "remarkably ill-informed" respectively. In recent academic work, he has collaborated with Gauti Eggertsson on a New Keynesian model of debt-overhang and debt-driven slumps, inspired by the writings of Irving Fisher, Hyman Minsky
Hyman Philip Minsky (September 23, 1919 – October 24, 1996) was an American economist, a professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis, and a distinguished scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His research at ...
, and Richard Koo
Richard C. Koo ( ja, リチャード・クー, ; ; born 1954) is a Taiwanese-American economist living in Japan specializing in balance sheet recessions. He is Chief Economist at the Nomura Research Institute.
Early life and education
Koo was bo ...
. Their work argues that during a debt-driven slump, the " paradox of toil", together with the paradox of flexibility, can exacerbate a liquidity trap, reducing demand and employment.
Free trade
Krugman's support for free trade
Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...
in the 1980s–1990s provoked some ire from the anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalis ...
.[ " rugman and Obstfeldseem to want to shame students into believing that there are no well-grounded arguments against coercing poor countries into free trade. ... This is poor logic, and pernicious insensitivity."][ In 1987 he quipped that, "If there were an Economist's Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations 'I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage' and 'I advocate Free Trade'."] However, Krugman argues in the same article that, given the findings of New Trade Theory, " ree tradehas shifted from optimum to reasonable rule of thumb ... it can never again be asserted as the policy that economic theory tells us is always right." In the article, Krugman comes out in favor of free trade given the enormous political costs of actively engaging in strategic trade policy and because there is no clear method for a government to discover which industries will ultimately yield positive returns. He also notes that increasing returns and strategic trade theory do not disprove the underlying truth of comparative advantage
In an economic model, agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade. Comp ...
.
In the midst of the 2009 Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
, Krugman made a significant departure from his general support for free trade, entertaining the idea of a 25% tariff on Chinese imports as a retaliation for China's policy of maintaining a low value for the renminbi, which many saw as hostile currency manipulation, artificially making their exports more competitive.
In 2015, Krugman noted his ambivalence about the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), or Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, was a highly contested proposed trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim economies, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Sin ...
, as the agreement was not mainly about trade and, "whatever you may say about the benefits of free trade, most of those benefits have already been realized" y existing agreements
After the 2016 elections, and Trump's moves towards protectionism, he wrote that while protectionism can make economies less efficient and reduce long-term growth, it would not directly cause recessions. He noted that if there is a trade war, imports would decrease as much as exports, so employment should not be strongly impacted, at least in the medium to long run. He believes that the US should not repeat Reagan's 1981 policy on taxes and quotas on imported products, as even if it does not produce a recession, protectionism would shock "value chains" and disrupt jobs and communities in the same way as free trade in the past. In addition, other countries would take retaliatory measures against US exports. Krugman recommended against the abandonment of NAFTA, because it could cause economic losses and disruptions to businesses, jobs, and communities.
In the late 2010s, Krugman admitted that the models that scholars used to measure the impact of globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...
in the 1990s underestimated the effect on jobs and inequality in developed countries such as the US. He noted that although free trade has harmed some industries, communities, and some workers, it remains a win-win system overall, enriching both parties to the agreement at the national level; a trade war is equivalently negative for the nations involved, even while it may benefit some individuals or industries within each nation.
Immigration
Krugman wrote in March 2006: "Immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That's just supply and demand: we’re talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production, so it's inevitable that this means a fall in wages ... the fiscal burden of low-wage immigrants is also pretty clear."
Green economy
Krugman has called for a transition to a green economy. He supported the Green New Deal
Green New Deal (GND) proposals call for public policy to address climate change along with achieving other social aims like job creation and reducing economic inequality. The name refers back to the New Deal, a set of social and economic refo ...
., asserting "I believe progressives should enthusiastically embrace the G.N.D.". He said that a "Green New Deal stuff is investment. On that stuff, don’t worry about paying for it. Debt as an issue is vastly overstated, and a lot of these things pay for themselves. Go ahead and just deficit finance it." In 2021, he wrote that "we will almost surely have to put a price" on greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and ...
. He criticized Democratic "moderates" and corporations "torpedoing efforts to avoid a civilization-threatening crisis because you want to hold down your tax bill".
Political views
Krugman describes himself as liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
, and has explained that he views the term "liberal" in the American context to mean "more or less what social democratic means in Europe". In a 2009 ''Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
'' article, Evan Thomas
Evan Welling Thomas III (born April 25, 1951) is an American journalist, historian, and author. He is the author of nine books, including two ''New York Times'' bestsellers.
Early life and career
Thomas was born in Huntington, New York, and r ...
described Krugman as having "all the credentials of a ranking member of the East coast liberal establishment" but also as someone who is anti-establishment, a "scourge of the Bush administration", and a critic of the Obama administration.[ In 1996, '']Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
'' Michael Hirsh remarked, "Say this for Krugman: though an unabashed liberal ... he's ideologically colorblind. He savages the supply-siders of the Reagan–Bush era with the same glee as he does the 'strategic traders' of the Clinton administration."[
Krugman has at times advocated free markets in contexts where they are often viewed as controversial. He has written against ]rent control
Rent regulation is a system of laws, administered by a court or a public authority, which aims to ensure the affordability of housing and tenancies on the rental market for dwellings. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves:
* Price con ...
and land-use restrictions in favor of market supply and demand, likened the opposition against free trade and globalization to the opposition against evolution via natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
(1996), opposed farm subsidies
An agricultural subsidy (also called an agricultural incentive) is a government incentive paid to agribusinesses, agricultural organizations and farms to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence t ...
, argued that sweatshop
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...
s are preferable to unemployment,[In Praise of Cheap Labor]
by Paul Krugman, Slate, March 21, 1997 dismissed the case for living wage
A living wage is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum, or a solidarity wage, which refers to a minimum wage tracking lab ...
s (1998),[Book review of ''Living Wage: What It Is and Why We Need It'']
Paul Krugman, Washington Monthly, September 1, 1998 and argued against mandates, subsidies, and tax breaks for ethanol
Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a ...
(2000). In 2003, he questioned the usefulness of NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
's manned space flights given the available technology and their high financial cost compared to their general benefits. Krugman has also criticized U.S. zoning laws and European labor market regulation.
Krugman endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
U.S. race relations
Krugman has criticized the Republican Party leadership for what he sees as a strategic (but largely tacit) reliance on racial divisions. In his ''Conscience of a Liberal'', he wrote:
On working in the Reagan administration
Krugman worked for Martin Feldstein when the latter was appointed chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. He later wrote in an autobiographical essay, "It was, in a way, strange for me to be part of the Reagan Administration. I was then and still am an unabashed defender of the welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...
, which I regard as the most decent social arrangement yet devised."[Incidents From My Career]
, by Paul Krugman, Princeton University Press, Retrieved December 10, 2008 Krugman found the time "thrilling, then disillusioning". He did not fit into the Washington political environment, and was not tempted to stay on.[
]
On Gordon Brown vs. David Cameron
According to Krugman, Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony B ...
and his party were unfairly blamed for the late-2000s financial crisis. He has also praised the former British prime minister
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...
, whom he described as "more impressive than any US politician" after a three-hour conversation with him. Krugman asserted that Brown "defined the character of the worldwide financial rescue effort" and urged British voters not to support the opposition Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
in the 2010 general election, arguing their Party Leader David Cameron "has had little to offer other than to raise the red flag of fiscal panic".[
]
On the Iraq War
Krugman opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He wrote in his ''New York Times'' column: "What we should have learned from the Iraq debacle was that you should always be skeptical and that you should never rely on supposed authority. If you hear that ‘everyone’ supports a policy, whether it's a war of choice or fiscal austerity, you should ask whether ‘everyone’ has been defined to exclude anyone expressing a different opinion."
On Donald Trump
Krugman has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
and his administration. His criticisms have included the president's climate change proposals, economic policy, the Republican tax plan and Trump's foreign policy initiatives. Krugman has often used his op-ed column in ''The New York Times'' to set out arguments against the president's policies. On election night in 2016, Krugman wrongly predicted in a ''New York Times'' op-ed that the markets would never recover under Trump and stated "first-pass answer is never" but retracted the call in the same publication three days later. Trump gave him a ' Fake News Award’. Krugman stated "I get a 'fake news award' for a bad market call, retracted 3 days later, from 2000-lie man, who still won’t admit he lost the popular vote. Sad!"
On
Russia under Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin has served three terms and is currently in a fourth as President of Russia (2000–2004, 2004–2008, 2012–2018 and May 2018 to present) and served as Acting President from 1999 to 2000, succeeding Boris Yeltsin after Yeltsin's ...
In his ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' column, Krugman described Russia as a " Potemkin Superpower" in reaction to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. He stated that "Russia is even weaker than most people, myself included, seem to have realized", that the military performance of Russia "has been less effective than advertised" in a stalemate at the beginning of the invasion, and that Russia encountered serious logistical problems. Krugman observed that the country's total gross domestic product
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is oft ...
is only a bit more than half as large as those of countries such as Britain and France, despite Russia's landmass, total population and natural resource endowment. Due to the international sanctions
International sanctions are political and economic decisions that are part of diplomatic efforts by countries, multilateral or regional organizations against states or organizations either to protect national security interests, or to protect in ...
, Russia has become even weaker economically than it did before it went to war. Its standard of living is sustained by large imports of manufactured goods, mostly paid for via exports of oil and natural gas. This leaves Russia’s economy highly vulnerable to sanctions that might disrupt this trade. He concluded "Russia now stands revealed as a Potemkin superpower, with far less real strength than meets the eye."
Views on technology
In 1998 during the dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
, Krugman wrote a commentary for '' Red Herring'' that urged skepticism of optimistic predictions for technology-driven progress. He followed it with several pessimistic predictions of his own, including that " 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
's" and that the number of jobs for IT specialists would decelerate and turn down. In a 2013 interview, Krugman stated that the predictions were meant to be "fun and provocative, not to engage in careful forecasting".
Krugman is a vocal critic of Bitcoin, arguing against its economic soundness since 2011. In 2017, he predicted that Bitcoin is a more obvious bubble than housing, and stated that " ere's been no demonstration yet that it actually is helpful in conducting economic transactions".
Personal life
Krugman has been married twice. His first wife, Robin L. Bergman, is a designer. He is currently married to Robin Wells
Robin Elizabeth Wells (born 1959) is an American economist. She is the co-author of several economics texts, mostly with her husband Paul Krugman.
Life and career
Wells received her BA from the University of Chicago and her PhD from the Universit ...
, an academic economist who received her BA from the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
and her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. She, as did Krugman, taught at MIT. Together, Krugman and his wife have collaborated on several economics textbooks. Although rumors began to circulate in early 2007 that Krugman's "son" was working for Hillary Clinton's campaign, Krugman reiterated in his ''New York Times'' op-ed column that he and his wife are childless.
Krugman currently lives in New York City. Upon retiring from Princeton after fifteen years of teaching in June 2015, he addressed the issue in his column, stating that while he retains the utmost praise and respect for Princeton, he wishes to reside in New York City and hopes to focus more on public policy issues. He subsequently became a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the ...
and a distinguished scholar at the Graduate Center's Luxembourg Income Study
LIS Cross-National Data Center, formerly known as the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), is a non-profit organization registered in Luxembourg which produces a cross-national database of micro-economic income data for social science research. The proj ...
Center.[
Krugman reports that he is a distant relative of conservative journalist ]David Frum
David Jeffrey Frum (; born June 30, 1960) is a Canadian-American political commentator and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, who is currently a senior editor at ''The Atlantic'' as well as an MSNBC contributor. In 2003, Frum a ...
. He has described himself as a "Loner. Ordinarily shy. Shy with individuals."
Published works
Academic books (authored or coauthored)
* ''The Spatial Economy – Cities, Regions and International Trade'' (July 1999), with Masahisa Fujita
is a Japanese economist who has studied regional science and Urban economics and International Trade, Spatial Economy ( New Economic Geography). He is a professor at Konan University and an adjunct professor at Institute of Economic Research, ...
and Anthony Venables
Anthony James Venables, CBE, (born 25 April 1953), is a British economist and the BP Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford.
Venables is known as one of the pioneers of New economic geography. He co-author ...
. MIT Press,
* ''The Self Organizing Economy'' (February 1996),
* ''EMU and the Regions'' (December 1995), with Guillermo de la Dehesa.
* ''Development, Geography, and Economic Theory (Ohlin Lectures)'' (September 1995),
* ''Foreign Direct Investment in the United States (3rd Edition)'' (February 1995), with Edward M. Graham.
* ''World Savings Shortage'' (September 1994),
* ''What Do We Need to Know About the International Monetary System? (Essays in International Finance, No 190 July 1993)''
* ''Currencies and Crises'' (June 1992),
* ''Geography and Trade (Gaston Eyskens Lecture Series)'' (August 1991),
* ''The Risks Facing the World Economy'' (July 1991), with Guillermo de la Dehesa and Charles Taylor.
* ''Has the Adjustment Process Worked? (Policy Analyses in International Economics, 34)'' (June 1991),
* ''Rethinking International Trade'' (April 1990),
* ''Trade Policy and Market Structure'' (March 1989), with Elhanan Helpman.
* ''Exchange-Rate Instability (Lionel Robbins Lectures)'' (November 1988),
* ''Adjustment in the World Economy'' (August 1987)
* ''Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy'' (May 1985), with Elhanan Helpman
Elhanan Helpman (Hebrew: אלחנן הלפמן, born March 30, 1946) is an Israeli economist who is currently the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard University. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the Eitan Berglas School o ...
.
Academic books (edited or coedited)
* ''Currency Crises (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)'' (September 2000),
* ''Trade with Japan: Has the Door Opened Wider? (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report)'' (March 1995),
* ''Empirical Studies of Strategic Trade Policy (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report)'' (April 1994), co-edited with Alasdair Smith.
* ''Exchange Rate Targets and Currency Bands'' (October 1991), co-edited with Marcus Miller.
* ''Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics'' (January 1986),
Economics textbooks
* ''Economics: European Edition'' (Spring 2007), with Robin Wells and Kathryn Graddy.
* ''Macroeconomics'' (February 2006), with Robin Wells.
* ''Economics'', first edition (December 2005), with Robin Wells.
* ''Economics'', second edition (2009), with Robin Wells.
* ''Economics'', third edition (2013), with Robin Wells.
* ''Economics'', fourth edition (2017), with Robin Wells.
* ''Economics'', fifth edition (2018), with Robin Wells.
* ''Economics'', sixth edition (2021), with Robin Wells.
* ''Microeconomics'' (March 2004), with Robin Wells.
* ''International Economics: Theory and Policy'', with Maurice Obstfeld. 7th Edition (2006), ; 1st Edition (1998),
Books for a general audience
* ''Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future'' (January 2020)
* '' End This Depression Now!'' (April 2012)
** A call for stimulative expansionary policy and an end to austerity
* '' The Conscience of a Liberal'' (October 2007)
* '' The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century'' (September 2003)
** A book of his ''The New York Times'' columns, many deal with the economic policies of the Bush administration or the economy in general.
* ''Fuzzy Math: The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan'' (May 4, 2001)
* '' The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008'' (December 2008)
** An updated version of his previous work.
* ''The Return of Depression Economics'' (May 1999)
** Considers the long economic stagnation of Japan through the 1990s, the Asian financial crisis
The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia and Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998– ...
, and problems in Latin America.
** ''The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008'' (December 2008)
* ''The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science'' (May 1998)
** Essay collection, primarily from Krugman's writing for ''Slate''.
* ''Pop Internationalism'' (March 1996)
** Essay collection, covering largely the same ground as ''Peddling Prosperity''.
* '' Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations'' (April 1995)
** History of economic thought from the first rumblings of revolt against Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output a ...
to the present, for the layman.
* ''The Age of Diminished Expectations: U.S. Economic Policy in the 1990s'' (1990)
** A "briefing book" on the major policy issues around the economy.
** Revised and Updated, January 1994,
** Third Edition, August 1997,
Selected academic articles
* (2012)
Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap: A Fisher-Minsky-Koo Approach
. ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' 127 (3), pp. 1469–513.
* (2009)
The Increasing Returns Revolution in Trade and Geography
. ''The American Economic Review'' 99(3), pp. 561–71.
* (1998)
It's Baaack: Japan's Slump and the Return of the Liquidity Trap
. ''Brookings Papers on Economic Activity'' 1998, pp. 137–205.
* (1996)
Are currency crises self-fulfilling?
. ''NBER Macroeconomics Annual'' 11, pp. 345–78.
* (1995)
* (1991)
Increasing returns and economic geography
. ''Journal of Political Economy'' 99, pp. 483–99.
* (1991)
* (1991)
History versus expectations
. ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'' 106 (2), pp. 651–67.
* (1981)
Intra-industry specialization and the gains from trade
. ''Journal of Political Economy'' 89, pp. 959–73.
* (1980)
Scale economies, product differentiation, and the pattern of trade
. ''American Economic Review'' 70, pp. 950–59.
* (1979)
A model of balance-of-payments crises
. ''Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking
The ''Journal of Money, Credit and Banking'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering monetary and financial issues in macroeconomics. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Ohio State University Department of Economics. The editor ...
'' 11, pp. 311–25.
* (1979)
Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade
. ''Journal of International Economics'' 9, pp. 469–79.
See also
* Capitol Hill Baby-Sitting Co-op, popularized in Krugman's book, ''Peddling Prosperity''
* List of economists
This is an incomplete alphabetical list by surname of notable economists, experts in the social science of economics, past and present. For a history of economics, see the article History of economic thought. Only economists with biographical artic ...
* List of Jewish Nobel laureates
Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The number of Jews receiving Nobel prizes has been the subject of some attention.*
*
*"Jews rank high among winners of Nobel, but why ...
* List of newspaper columnists
This is a list of notable newspaper columnists. It does not include magazine or electronic columnists.
English-language
Australia
* Phillip Adams (born 1939), ''The Australian''
* Piers Akerman (born 1950), ''The Daily Telegraph''
* Janet Al ...
* New Yorkers in journalism
New York City has been called the media capital of the world. Many journalists work in Manhattan, reporting about international, American, business, entertainment, and New York metropolitan area-related matters.
New Yorkers in journalism
A
...
References
External links
*
Profile and column archive
at ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''
KrugmanOnline.com
features books by Krugman, a custom search engine, and aggregated content from the web.
The Unofficial Krugman Archive
contains nearly all his pre-''TimesSelect'' articles
Paul Krugman (MIT)
archives of his ''Slate'' and ''Fortune'' columns plus other writings 1996–2000
Krugman Publications
at the National Bureau of Economic Research
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...
Contra Krugman
– articles by economist Robert P. Murphy
Robert Patrick Murphy (born May 23, 1976) is an American economist. Murphy is Research Assistant Professor with the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. He has been affiliated with Laffer Associates, the Pacific Research Institute, ...
and historian Thomas Woods
Thomas Ernest Woods Jr. (born August 1, 1972) is an American author and libertarian commentator who is currently a senior fellow at the Mises Institute.Naji FilaliInterview with Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Harvard Political Review, August 16, 2011. Wo ...
seeking to refute Krugman
"Paul Krugman: Commencement Speaker
Bard College at Simon's Rock
Bard College at Simon's Rock (more commonly known as Simon's Rock) is a private residential liberal arts college in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It is a unit of Bard College, which is located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
The school ...
" (YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
)
*
Paul Krugman
at nobelprize.org
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krugman, Paul
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