To those people wondering about the influence of politics on Krugman's prize:
(1) Krugman won the John Bates Clark Medal for economics in 1991. This is a Prize given every two years to an American Economist under 40. It's often considered harder to win than the economics Nobel, and is a significant predictor of who actually will win the Nobel. Note that this was largely before Krugman got involved in politics, and past winners include Milton Friedman. I doubt his politics helped him win this one.
His involvement in politics is largely limited to the past several years. His main contributions to economics, arguably, have come far before that.
He's the author of the foremost textbook on international trade (Krugman+Obstfield), and developed models of international trade that every economics major knows (or should, at least).
I've never laughed so hard that coffee went up my nose while reading an econ paper prior to coming across this one. (Okay, and maybe the first version of the Paulson bailout, but that was a very different sort of laughter.)
"First Fundamental Theorem of Interstellar Trade: When trade takes place between two planets in a common inertial frame, the interest costs on goods in transit should be calculated using time measured by clocks in the common frame, and not by clocks in the frames of trading spacecraft."
and the final line for the kicker:
"Those of us working in this field are still a small band, but we know that the Force is with us."
If you've followed Krugman for long, you've seen this coming for quite a while. The possibility of his winning an economics Nobel have been rumored for years. The interesting thing to me is that, when reading his columns, I often get the sense that Krugman doesn't really believe in economics. He talks a good economics talk, but he hasn't internalized its lessons. He's like a brilliant Christian apologist who doesn't believe in Christ.
I had the opportunity to hear Krugman speak in 2004 before the election. What I found surprising was how much he seemed to value his column. It certainly seemed like he thought it was much more important than his academic work.
I think it's extremely important to have academics in constant communication with the public. Keeps them grounded and their language plain, while the public can continue to engage with academics long after they've graduated.
I can't find any fault in Krugman's academic work. I haven't read it, though it sounds fascinating. He is held in high regard in the academy, and I believe he is as talented as other people say he is.
His NY Times column, however, I feel fit to judge as shrill, unimaginative, vanilla leftism. I'm sure he understands all the criticisms that other economists would level at the policies he supports. The flaws are glaring. Now, it is perfectly honest to acknowledge the existence of those flaws and argue that the benefits of the policy outweigh the drawbacks. However, it is not honest to pretend that such criticisms do not exist.
I could read similar opinion pieces from any leftist without a PHD after his name. The point of reading someone so lettered is that his opinions should be well-argued and therefore interesting, even if you disagree with him. That is rarely the case with Krugman.
I have no doubt that his work in economics will be remembered 50 years from now, and his columns will be long forgot.
There is a different strand of criticism of Krugman (and the neo-Keynesians in general) that is quite apart from his politics. At some level, this is a criticism of the modern economic profession itself, and its worship of mathematical models. This is conceptually analogous to but quite distinct from the Wall Street addiction to quantitative/stochastic modeling, which is behind much of the present mess. Krugman represents the pinnacle of that mathematical tradition. To be fair, Milton Friedman, ideologically the polar opposite of Krugman, has also faced similar criticism.
I have long admired Krugman's analysis. I haven't read his academic work on economics of scale but if it is of the same quality as his articles, the nobel prize is well deserved.
It's funny, I remember someone saying "If Paul Krugman hadn't started spewing about politics in the NY Times, he probably would've won the Nobel Prize." Looks like he won it anyway...
Since some of the folks who decide the Nobel winners have been quoted that other decisions were made as a "kick in the leg" at the Bush administration, Krugman's political columns probably helped him.
Not really. I call it a scam because it's not limited to just 700 billion. It's an unlimited raid on the treasury, and even the modified plan still doesn't have enough transparency. It gives the executive branch even more power.
To me this is just politics, since the prize was awarded by one of the central banks to someone strongly advocating their policies...
i have no idea what you're talking about. He's been highly critical of the plan from the outset. I've seen post after post criticizing it and only one or two which basically said, "this isn't perfect, but we need to act now, and this can get through the senate so it's the best we've got".
Doesn't seem very surprising to me given the history of the Nobel committee in the soft sciences and humanities. It will be interesting to see how history views Krugman's accomplishments. I know some of their laureates, like Arafat, didn't hold up so well.
Krugman is much, much more than a liberal columnist. He got the column because, unlike most pundits, he has a long track record of interesting work in his field, and, unlike most eggheads, a knack for and interest in explaining those issues to the public. If you're reading him only via links from redstate.com or whatever, you're very much missing the point.
And when did Yasir Arafat win the Nobel prize in Economics? You do realize that the selection committees are entirely different organizations, right? Must everything be a political swipe at conservatives? Isn't it possible that every once in a while one of those lib'ruls might actually produce something useful and be rewarded for it?
As a non-economist, one of the ways that I look at their work is to observe when they go 'against the grain' politically: when the left-wing ones argue for free markets, and when the right wing ones argue for intervention.
I'm going to attempt rational discourse. So far you guys don't seem to like it so much.
I'm not an economist. I don't read the guy. I'm sure he's the bees knees and the next best thing to sliced bread.
I simply make the observation that the word is out that the Noble prize is a little myoptic. I've also heard that Krugman has become a reliable shill for the left. So when I heard he got the prize, I laughed. It seemed funny to me.
Maybe I'm completely wrong. Glad to admit it. Let's let history be the judge. Or -- you can accuse me of trolling and downmod the crap out of my comments. I'm not looking for an argument. If you can understand that, we can talk reasonably. If not -- well, you always have that little down arrow to click on, right? That beats saying something intelligent.
Again, you seem to be conflating the Nobel peace prize (awarded in Norway by one committee on the basis of inherently political criteria that you may or may not find "myopic") with the Nobel prize in Economics* , a prize given by a completely separate committee in Sweden on the basis of technical criteria that have been more or less uniformly judged uncontroversial, objective and non-political. While I'm sure there has been the occasional argument about who deserves it more, I'm not aware of anyone anywhere who's made the argument that the economics prize is a "little myopic", nor do I know who might be spreading that "word" either.
Basically: you are making a baldly partisan, political argument where none is appropriate. If you admit to not knowing enough to decide for yourself, the proper judge is not "history", but the experts on the committee who do know this stuff quite well.
* Strictly, not true. The economics prize wasn't endowed by Alfred Nobel, but added more recently using funds from the original trust. Or something to that effect.
How can a comment about a committee in Sweden be partisan? Are they running for some kind of office here? There's nothing partisan here. I'm not recommending a party, and heck, I like the Swedes.
Look -- I'm ignorant. I've admitted as much. Why not have a reasonable conversation about it instead of all the hand-waving and yelling?
As far as I'm concerned, I was making a blanket statement about Noble prizes in soft sciences and the humanities. It's a generalization. Probably wrong. Guess what? I still get to make it, and I still think it's funny. If you'd like to discuss it reasonably, I'm game.
I'm happy with waiting 20 or 30 years and seeing how Krugman's research does. Are you? Or do we have to settle this now for once and all?
Last I checked, economics is a field with a lot of opinions. How can you be so certain Krugman has such great ideas? Geesh. We're still debating Keynes and Smith, you have to admit there is some room for opinion here, right?
"I'm happy with waiting 20 or 30 years and seeing how Krugman's research does. Are you? Or do we have to settle this now for once and all?"
The awards committee cited papers Krugman'd written in 1979, 1981 and 1991 as the basis for their decision.
You can be certain Krugman had such great ideas because his work has been widely cited by other Economists and has been recognized through awards such as the Nobel.
That we're still debating Keynes and Smith only further indicates the far reaching impact of their work.
Yes I am aware how that it is typical for the committee to cite works from decades ago.
That we're still debating Keynes and Smith indicate that economics is not like physics -- it has a long way to go. We certainly didn't debate Newton for a century: it was too obvious he was correct. There is lots of room for opinion. QED
> I'm going to attempt rational discourse. So far you guys don't seem to like it so much.
I don't like it because it's off topic, as is this whole article. You seem like a pretty reasonable and intelligent guy to me, but there's a good reason politics is taboo: it tends to attract people that aren't so reasonable, that come to sites merely to argue and flame.
If you want to put it in terms of Krugman, consider his NYT columns. Instead of working on more insightful and cutting edge economics, we have a very sharp economist wasting his time saying that "Bush is an idiot". It doesn't take a genius to figure that out or write about it.
Out of curiosity, what exceptions do you take to left-leaning ideology? From an economic, social, or military standpoint do you find major problems with it, and why?(Just trying to drive understanding, not argument.)
Personally I find the left and right very willing to take away my freedoms. The right wants to take away my freedoms to protect me and to keep our nation's religious heritage. The left wants to take away my freedom in the name of the greater good, the environment, redistributing wealth, and being "fair" ("fair" is a word that is used to evoke emotional a response)
I don't listen to talk radio, I don't visit those sites that were mentioned, and I don't subscribe to anything more political that RealClearPolitics.com. So my comments were in no way meant to be controversial. I thought I had a right to share my amusement (and ignorance, for that matter)
In my opinion, we do the best when we get both sides arguing with each other to find solutions in most of the problems we have. As such, I treasure dearly both my conservative and liberal friends -- ideologies are never completely correct, but honestly comparing different opinions kicks ass, whether its politics or startups.
(1) Krugman won the John Bates Clark Medal for economics in 1991. This is a Prize given every two years to an American Economist under 40. It's often considered harder to win than the economics Nobel, and is a significant predictor of who actually will win the Nobel. Note that this was largely before Krugman got involved in politics, and past winners include Milton Friedman. I doubt his politics helped him win this one.
(2) By most measures of citation impact, Krugman is one of the world's leading economists. E.g., http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.nbcites.html
Citations are, of course, an imperfect predictor of the significance of someone's work, this is just an additional data point.
I doubt his involvement in US politics had much impact on the prize.