NYT's Krugman Wins Nobel Economic Prize

New York Times economist wasn't always political

(NEWSER) - Believe it or not, Paul Krugman once worked for Ronald Reagan. It’s not that Krugman was conservative; it’s that he just wasn’t political. He was an academic, and only vaguely aware of the growing right-left divide. “I feel now like I was sleepwalking through the twenty years before 2000,” says the subject of a lengthy profile in this week's New Yorker . But then came George W. Bush, who changed everything. More»

Nobel laureate write classic intro text for 'dismal science'

(NEWSER) - Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and a familiar name to generations of college students, died today at his home outside Boston. He was 94. Ben Bernanke praised his former MIT professor as "a titan of economics," and a colleague said of their fellow academics, "No one was more important in providing the tools they use and the ideas that they employ than Paul Samuelson." More»

(NEWSER) - If there’s any justice, Ben Bernanke will get another go-around at the helm of the Federal Reserve, Paul Krugman tells Bloomberg. “He’s earned the right to a second term,” the Nobel laureate says. “When the banking system failed to deliver capital where it was needed, he put the Fed into the market.” Bernanke’s 4-year term ends in January, and debate has been swirling over whether he should be reappointed. More»

Prize awarded for mechanism design theory

(NEWSER) - Americans Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson have won this year’s Nobel Prize in economics for developing "mechanism design theory," which indicates when markets are working effectively, Reuters reports. The theory can be used to assess the factors which make individuals and corporations deviate from the ideal market suggested by Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ metaphor, the prize committee noted. More»

Austerity measures violate basic economic tenets: Paul Krugman

(NEWSER) - Europe has been lauded for its commitment to austerity measures as a means of restoring its economies. But a quick look at the state of those economies reaffirms what any economist should already have known, writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times : The effort is backfiring. Krugman explains that by one key measure of economic health—"changes in real GDP since the recession began"—Britain is in worse shape now, four years after the start of the recession, than it was four years into the Great Depression. Italy is in a similar state, and Spain is poised for a double-dip recession. More»