Tyler Cowen en Marginal Revolution:
I have to say I did not expect him to win until Bush left office, as I thought the Swedes wanted the resulting discussion to focus on Paul's academic work rather than on issues of politics. So I am surprised by the timing but not by the choice.
Arnold Kling en Econlog:
Sallie James en Cato & Liberty:Krugman suggested that there are increasing returns in an industry. That theory explains why movies are done in Hollywood, fashion is done in New York, autos are done in Detroit, and so forth. International trade patterns may owe more to historical accidents and path dependence than to factor endowments. It is a classic contribution.
I have my concerns with Prof. Krugman’s later work and his tendency to allow his political views to trump economic good sense. As the Economist [$] wrote in 2003 “A glance through his past columns reveals a growing tendency to attribute all the world’s ills to George Bush…Even his economics is sometimes stretched…” He is generally considered to be a big-government liberal. But the prize was not awarded for his NYT columns or his opinions on economic or foreign policy.
Bill Anderson en LewRockwell.com Blog:
Given the horrible state of the economy and the idiocy coming from mainstream economists, I would have thought that nobody would win the Nobel Prize in Economics this year. Instead, the Swedish Central Bank and its minions have awarded this prize to none other than Paul Krugman. That's right, a man who gave up economics long ago in order to become a political operative now wears the title of "Nobel" winner.
Unfortunately, he now will be in an even greater position of influence, a man who has declared publicly that we need another "New Deal," and a man who believes that FDR lifted the economy out of the Great Depression. A man who believes war is good for the economy. A man who rarely says an intelligent thing in his column.
Russ Roberts en Cafe Hayek:
Today, now that he has won the Nobel Prize, I'd like to remember the quote that made it clear to me that the economic way of thinking was no longer of concern to him, when he wrote in the New York Times Sunday Magazine: Although America has higher per capita income than other advanced countries, it turns out that that's mainly because our rich are much richer. And here's a radical thought: if the rich get more, that leaves less for everyone else. That statement -- which is simply a matter of arithmetic -- is guaranteed to bring accusations of ''class warfare.''
