Warmest congratulations to Paul Krugman on getting the Nobel prize. It was overdue (but then it usually is). I can't think of an economist who could match him at extracting deep insight from simple, ingeniously specified models--again and again, one thought, why did nobody else see this?--or whose forthcoming academic papers would arouse such excitement. He can be an irascible fellow. He often finds it hard to respect people he disagrees with. I think he is much too quick to accuse people of bad faith. But his detractors should not deceive themselves: he is a kind of genius.
As I've mused before, it was a significant loss to economics when he put scholarly work to one side to make himself the scourge of the Bush administration, not to mention an affront to the principle of comparative advantage. Economists of his quality are much harder to find than angry pundits, however effective, and serve a greater social purpose. An enlightened central planner would never have allowed it.
At least we can be sure that the prize won't go to Paul's head. As he pointed out a while back, the Nobel is a second-class award, conferring less distinction than the Clark medal. (Paul won that 16 years ago.)
I've already cast my vote through an absentee ballot. One of the things that I'm yearning for in the new administration is a President who will give Robert Reich and Paul Krugman some input into economic policy.
"it was a significant loss to economics when he put scholarly work to one side to make himself the scourge of the Bush administration, not to mention an affront to the principle of comparative advantage. "
I understand that this was tongue-in-cheek - but it works because of an assumption in economics - that material reward is synonymous with virtue, or more precisely, that they're so highly correlated that it's "as if" they're equivalent.
Mr. Crook, I'm sure, would want nothing to do with an enlightened central planner in real life - but even so posited (a utilitarian ideal), it's a pretty misguided starting point, in my opinion.
There's not an alternative that makes all the models nice and pretty, though.
-Steve
I don't know what work Paul Krugman would have done had he remained a pure academic or what the academic community lost when he turned to attacking the Bush administration almost full time, but he did a great service to the world by doing doing so. There may be plenty of angry anti-Neocon pundits now, but he was a lifeline for many of us when almost no one dared speak out against the fear mongers in the Republican party.
Krugman had been writing for a more popular audience for several years (here's a classic from 1996: the world from the perspective of the year 2096 -- http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E4D9173CF93AA1575AC0A960958260&sec=&spon=&&scp=1&sq=krugman%20veterinary%20bangalore&st=cse ). Further, he took up the position at the NYTimes before Bush was elected -- he started in 1999 or 2000 as I recall. It was not Krugman who went to scourge Bush, it was Bush who showed up deserving of being scourged, and no one else was willing or able to take up the job. Economics' loss was America's gain, I assure you. And he kept up with some economics work anyway, including the texts co-authored with his wife. I believe Greg Mankiw said something like "90% of the added value from economics comes from a good Econ 101 course and text" (I paraphrase).
Would love to see the citation of Krugman's subordinating the Nobel.
Levi -- Krugman has often said that he is temperamentally ill suited for bureaucratic or applied policy settings, and Krugman and Reich (at least based on past intellectual sparrings) are oil and water -- see, for example, Krugman's discussion of this in his essay of personal reflections on his career, http://www.pkarchive.org/personal/incidents.html
also, Clive Crook, I think you're confusing "comparative advantage" with "absolute advantage." If there was no one doing effective and clearheaded policy analysis of the Bush doings and of US economic policy generally, it may have been advantageous (or satisfying) for Krugman to forego his absolute advantage in economic theorizing and do something that he might only have comparative advantage at -- the commentating. Krugman has an essay on that too, Ricardo's Difficult Idea: http://www.pkarchive.org/trade/ricardo.html
Saw Krugman on the idiot tube just the other day, explaining to all us idiots why trickle-down economics don't work and how they helped foster this economic crisis. Seems he doesn't like the central planning model, opting for a bottom-up model.
Congratulations, Crook, on the class of your congrats to Krugman's award. I'm sure he got a chuckle out of it, if he bothered to even notice. Central planning noticed, and they're grateful.
Not a Nobel Prize, merely the Nobel Memorial Prize, an award concocted by economists jealous of being left out of the Nobels and purposely awarded at the time of the Nobels in order to claim dignity by association.
Alfred Nobel was no fool, however, and knew that economics is not a science.
The Nobel award was given to Krugman to stick it to those evil Americans. Al Gore, Jimmy Carter - there is nothing the European left loves more than an anti-American American.
The award was not given to Krugman's distinguished early work on international trade. It was given for his writings in the New York Time - sloppy, fact challenged garbage inspired by Bush Derangement Syndrome.
The Krugman case is not the first time in history that a potentially great thinker has allowed political passions to destroy his talent. But it is sad nonetheless.
As opposed to the peer-reviewed and independently reproducible results available in peace and literature?
You need a better argument than that.
Bulbman, could you give solid examples (not from right-wing blogs, but from journalistic watchdogs, for example) of Krugman's critiques of the Bush Administration's policies being "fact challenged" and "sloppy"?
I'm not surprised you're still defending Bush, by the way: the Ptolemaic system lasted against all evidence for hundreds of years. Anyway, let's hear your evidence, or else retract the groundless insults as the expression of a natural emotional bias, such as we all have, but sometimes lose the fight against. Thanks.
"You need a better argument than that."
"KevDog"
The simple fact is that there is NO Nobel Prize for Economics established by Alfred Nobel.
He could have, but he did not.