I did not think that Paul Krugman was still writing academic papers. Nor have I seen any evidence in the last decade that he still has any sense of humor.
Consequently, I was surprised to see an article written by him entitled “The Theory of Interstellar Trade,” published recently in the journal Economic Inquiry.
Paul Krugman and Robin Wells caricature my recent book Fault Lines in an article in The New York Review of Books. The article, and their criticism, however, do have a lot to say about Krugman’s policy views (for simplicity, I will say “Krugman” and “he” instead of “Krugman and Wells” and “they”), which I have disagreed with in the past. Rather than focus on the innuendo about my motives and beliefs in the review, let me focus on differences of substance. I will return to why I believe Krugman writes the way he does only at the end.
Raghuram Rajan, a University of Chicago economics professor and former chief economist of the IMF, has been popping up on the blog a lot lately – answering our questions about his new book Fault Lines and weighing in on the financial reform bill. Now he’s back with a guest post, clarifying and expanding his views on the Federal Reserve’s ultra-low interest rate policy.
“My attitude is this,” he said. “If you are getting attacked by Krugman, you must be doing something right.”
Is there any other academic field in which standard decorum is valued so low?
Slate columnist Daniel Gross thinks he’s found the female embodiment of Paul Krugman in Japanese economist Noriko Hama.
When giants like Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson start to argue, they both sound compelling. Ferguson says that interest rates are rising because of the deficit, and Krugman retorts that Ferguson has forgotten his first-year economics. Fortunately, the data can speak, and it’s time to give them a voice. This is why I turn to my frequent collaborator, Eric Zitzewitz, who has an incredibly handy knack for getting financial data to speak clearly. Eric’s verdict? You’ll have to keep reading.
As noted here earlier, this recession (depression? repression?) is inspiring some pretty decent pop music. I think the apex has been reached. Listen for yourself to “Hey, Paul Krugman,” by Jonathan Mann: It’s a pretty great song, and not just because of the lyrics:
The gloves are definitely coming off. This piece by Chicago economist John Cochrane and another by Chicago’s Eugene Fama get under the skin of Brad DeLong and lead Paul Krugman to denounce Cochrane and Fama as barbarians.
In Freakonomics we poke fun at “experts” — folks who go around speaking with great authority about topics they don’t actually know that much about. I can be criticized for a lot of things since Freakonomics came out, but one thing that I have been pretty good at is not masquerading as an expert on topics I know little about. . . .
What was Paul Krugman thinking when he met President Bush last week? Here’s a list of over 300 photo captions from readers of this blog, and another couple hundred from Marginal Revolution here (with others here and Tyler Cowen‘s favorites here). Krugman, who graciously agreed to judge our Freako-versus-MR caption-that-photo contest, has spoken: Actually, I think it’s a tie — . . .
Yesterday, I asked Tyler Cowen if he’s willing to bet his Marginal Revolution readers against Freakonomics readers in the caption-that-photo contest we announced earlier this week. I’m pleased to report that Cowen is a betting man after all. Yes Tyler, your bet is accepted — and it’s dinner on the loser. I remain confident that the winning caption will be . . .
Yesterday, President Bush invited the most recent round of Nobel laureates to the White House to accept his congratulations. And yes, this included his trenchant critic and economics prize-winner, Paul Krugman. Photo from Economist.com This photo posted on Economist.com (from Agence France-Presse) makes me wish I were better at reading body language. I’m going to shamelessly rip off The New . . .
A reporter friend of mine recently asked me for a short list of academic economists he should call to better understand the current financial and economic mess. I found it a more difficult question than it should be. It really has been quite striking how silent most economists have been in this hour of need. There are, of course, a . . .
There has been a lot of hand-wringing about whether or not the U.S. economy is currently in a recession. This morning’s data will, I think, lead to a near-unanimous view that the U.S. economy is in a recession. Not only was employment growth in February negative, but the B.L.S. also tells us that the previous two months were worse than . . .
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman kicked off his new blog a couple days ago with a long entry on inequality. While economists are well aware of the patterns in inequality, there is less agreement concerning the reasons for its ups and downs. Krugman believes that the primary factor driving inequality is politics. I suspect that most economists would disagree. . . .