Paul Krugman

Economist

• Born: February 28, 1953
• Place of Birth: Albany, New York

PROFESSOR AND AUTHOR

Krugman is a professor of economics and the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics for explaining the nature of international trade patterns and the geographic concentration of wealth by examining economies of scale and consumer demand for different kinds of goods and services.

AREAS OF ACHIEVEMENT: Economics; education

Early Life

Paul Krugman was the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Brest-Litovsk, Belarus, and a son of David and Anita Krugman. He was raised on Long Island and graduated from Bellmore’s John F. Kennedy High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Yale University in 1974, and he completed a PhD in the same field at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977. Krugman has said that his interest in economics was sparked by the science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, set in a future where social scientists use "psychohistory" to manage a civilization that is destroying itself. For "psychohistory, Krugman read economics.

Life’s Work

During 1982 and 1983, Krugman worked on staff for the Council of Economic Advisors in Ronald Reagan's White House. He then taught at Yale, MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, the London School of Economics, and Stanford University before joining the faculty of Princeton University in 2000. He taught at Princeton for fifteen years, then became a distinguished professor at City University of New York Graduate Center.

By 2010, Krugman had written or edited more than twenty-five books, scores of academic papers, and hundreds of newspaper columns, many of which seek to explain the complexities of economics to nonspecialists. Krugman’s International Economics: Theory and Policy (1988), which was cowritten with Maurice Obstfeld, has been a long-standing international economics college textbook. He won the John Bates Clark medal, a prize given to an outstanding young economist every two years, from the American Economic Association in 1991.

Krugman is best known as a public intellectual, who writes about politics and economics. His citation for the Nobel Prize saluted Krugman for explaining the nature of international trade patterns and the geographic concentration of wealth by examining economies of scale and consumer demand for different kinds of goods and services.

Krugman occasionally comments on Jewish politics, as in 2003, when he said that Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s assertion that Jews rule the world by proxy was an anti-Semitic sop to appease Muslim critics of the George W. Bush administration’s policies. At the same time, Krugman wrote that Bush’s promotion of war in Iraq and his unconditional support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was damaging the United States in the Arab world. While Krugman said that Mahathir’s remarks were “inexcusable,” Krugman reaped a whirlwind of criticism from Jews for his excoriation of Bush’s Israeli policies. Some commentators also said that an article Krugman wrote for The New York Times Magazine in 1998 supported Mahathir’s assertion that Jewish speculators were responsible for a currency crisis at that time.

Krugman considers himself a liberal, and one of his best-known books for a general audience (as well as his New York Times blog) is titled The Conscience of a Liberal (2007). In addition to his academic publishing, Krugman publishes a steady stream of books for general readers, such as The Age of Diminished Expectations (1990), which analyzes increasing income inequity in the United States’ "new economy." He became increasingly critical of George W. Bush's economic policies, as illustrated by his collection of columns, The Great Unraveling (2003). He especially criticized the Bush administration’s policies that he argued widened the gap between the rich and the poor. In 1999, The New York Times asked Krugman to write a twice-a-week column on business and economics, which often covers politics as well. Krugman was always unabashed about his promotion of progressivism, a direction in which he would like to see the United States head more consistently.

Krugman has also written books for a general audience. Among these is Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future, which was published in 2020.

Krugman was married to Robin L. Bergman, but that marriage ended in divorce. His second wife, Robin Wells, was an academic economist with whom he collaborated on textbooks.

Significance

Krugman was well-known throughout his career among fellow scholars, and his frequent commentary directed at the general public made him among the most widely known economic analysts and liberal political voices in the mass media as well. His greatest recognition came in 2008 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. The honor was bestowed for his important contributions to understanding patterns of international trade and other elements of economic geography.

Bibliography

"About Paul Krugman." Paul Krugman. W. W. Norton & Co., 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.

Krugman, Paul. The Conscience of a Liberal. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. Print.

Krugman, Paul. The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. Print.

Krugman, Paul. Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. Print.

Krugman, Paul. "Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Paul Krugman." The New York Times, interview by Ezra Klein, 17 Feb. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-paul-krugman.html. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

MacFarquhar, Larissa. “The Deflationist: How Paul Krugman Found Politics.” The New Yorker, March 1, 2010. Print.

"Paul R. Krugman." Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs. Trustees of Princeton University, 2016. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.