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Revision as of 15:24, 15 September 2004

Paul Robin Krugman (born February 28, 1953) is an American economist. He is probably best known to the public as an outspoken and formidable critic of the economic and general policies of the administration of George W. Bush from his current post as a columnist for the New York Times op-ed page. Unlike many economic pundits, he is regarded as a respected economist by his peers. Krugman has written hundreds of papers and eighteen books — some of them academic, and some of them written for the layperson. His International Economics: Theory and Policy is a standard textbook on international economics. In 1991 he was awarded the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal by the American Economic Association.

Krugman was born and grew up on Long Island, and majored in economics as an undergraduate at Yale. He obtained a Ph.D. from MIT in 1977 and taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford University before joining the faculty of Princeton University, where he has been since 1996. From 1982 to 1983, he spent a year working at the Reagan White House as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

When Bill Clinton came into office in 1992, it was expected that Krugman would be given a leading post, but he was passed over for various reasons. However, this allowed him to turn to writing journalism for wider audiences, first for Fortune and Slate, later for The Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, The Economist, Harper's, and Washington Monthly. In his own words, he became adept at "new kind of writing ... essays for non-economists that were clear, effective, and entertaining."

Krugman worked on an advisory board for Enron throughout most of 1999 before resigning to take a job as a columnist. This became a source of controversy when the story of the Enron scandal broke, with critics accusing him of having a conflict of interest and the job of having been a bribe to control media coverage, charges he vehemently denies. He also notes that he disclosed the past Enron relationship when he later wrote about the company .

Since January 2000, he has contributed a twice-weekly column to the Opinion/Editorial page of the New York Times, which has made him, in the words of the Washington Monthly, "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 September, 2003, Krugman published a collection of his columns under the title, The Great Unraveling. It was a scathing attack on the Bush's administration's economic and foreign policies. The book was an immediate bestseller. Krugman combines a strong respect for the free market with a populist streak.

Krugman's high profile has turned him into a target of heavy criticism, and sometimes even personal attacks, by his detractors, as well as praise from a growing body of fans.

In the 1990s Paul Krugman's focus was on what can be described as policy economics, which he attempted to explain to the general audience in such works as "Peddling Prosperity" and columns attacking what he described as "policy entrepreneurs" who were focused single mindedly on particular solutions which they proposed as solving every conceivable crisis.

Krugman was the main architect of the zero interest rate policy.

Bibliography

• Peddling Prosperity (ISBN 0393312925), 1995. A book for those seeking to understand the history of economic thought from the time of the first rumblings of revolt against Keynesianism to the present. Written for the economics layman. Somewhat dense, but worthwhile in the opinion of some.
• The Accidental Theorist (ISBN 0393318877), 1999. A collection of Krugman's articles for various publications regarding the economy.
• The Return of Depression Economics (ISBN 0393320367), 2000. In this work Krugman considers the long economic stagnation of Japan through the 1990s, the Asian financial crisis, and problems in Latin America, and concludes that the generally accepted idea among economists that depressions can be prevented is no longer true.
• The Great Unraveling (ISBN 0393058506), 2003. A book of his New York Times columns, many of them dealing with Bush economic policies, some dealing with the economy in general.

Authored or co-authored

• Economics (not yet published)
• Microeconomics and Student Cdr (not yet released) (ISBN 0716767007)
• Microeconomics and Study Guide (not yet released, November 2004) (ISBN 071676699X)
• Krugman Wall Street Journal Sub Card (not yet released, November 2004) {ISBN 0716766973}
• Microeconomics (March 2004) (ISBN 0716759977)
• The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century (September 2003) (ISBN 0393058506)
• International Economics: Theory and Policy (6th Edition) (July 26, 2002) (ISBN 0201770377)
• The New Trade Agenda (Foreign Affairs Editors' Choice) (December 2001) (ISBN 0876093020)
• Fuzzy Math: The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan (May 4, 2001) (ISBN 0393050629)
• The Return of Depression Economics (May 1, 1999) (ISBN 039304839X)
• The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science (May 1, 1998) (ISBN 0393046389)
• International Economics (March 1998) (ISBN 0673521869)
• The Age of Diminished Expectations, Third Edition (August 8, 1997) (ISBN 0262112248)
• Competitiveness (January 1, 1997)
• Pop Internationalism (March 1, 1996) (ISBN 0262112108)
• Self Organizing Economy (February 1, 1996) (ISBN 087609177X)
• Emu and the Regions (December 1995) (ISBN 1567080383)
• Development, Geography, and Economic Theory (Ohlin Lectures) (September 15, 1995) (ISBN 0262112035)
• Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations (April 1, 1995) (ISBN 0393312925)
• Foreign Direct Investment in the United States (3rd Edition) (February 1, 1995) (ISBN 0881322040)
• World Savings Shortage (September 1, 1994) (ISBN 0881321613)
• What Do We Need to Know About the International Monetary System? (Essays in International Finance, No 190 July 1993) (June 1, 1993) (ISBN 0881650978)
• Currencies and Crises (June 11, 1992) (ISBN 0262111659)
• Geography and Trade (Gaston Eyskens Lecture Series) (August 1991) (ISBN 0262111594)
• The Risks Facing the World Economy (July 1991) (ISBN 1567080731)
• Has the Adjustment Process Worked? (Policy Analyses in International Economics, 34) (June 1, 1991) (ISBN 0881321168)
• Rethinking International Trade (April 1, 1990) (ISBN 0262111489)
• Trade Policy and Market Structure (March 30, 1989) (ISBN 0262081822)
• Exchange-Rate Instability (Lionel Robbins Lectures) (November 2, 1988) (ISBN 0262111403)
• Adjustment in the World Economy (August 1987) (ISBN 1567080235)
• Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics (January 1986) (ISBN 0262111128)
• Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy (May 1, 1985) (ISBN 0262081504)

Edited or co-edited

• Currency Crises (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report) (September 1, 2000) (ISBN 0226454622)
• Trade with Japan : Has the Door Opened Wider? (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report) (March 1, 1995) (ISBN 0226454592/)
• Empirical Studies of Strategic Trade Policy (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report) (April 15, 1994) (ISBN 0226454606)
• Exchange Rate Targets and Currency Bands (October 1991) (ISBN 0521415330)

External links

• The Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive contains most if not all articles ever written by Paul Krugman.
• New York Times columns with free access to latest two.
• The Accidental Theorist online version of his book of essays
• Paul Krugman website at Princeton which hasn't been updated since late 2003.
• Washington Monthly profile from December 2002.

• Essayists
• Economists