Paul Krugman Wins Economics Nobel

From: http://www.nytimes.com/

By Catherine Rampell

Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday.
“It’s been an extremely weird day, but weird in a positive way,” Mr. Krugman said in an interview on his way to a meeting for the Group of Thirty, an international body from the public and private sectors that discusses international economics.

Mr. Krugman received the award for his work on international trade and economic geography. In particular, the prize committee lauded his work for “having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity.” He has developed models that explain observed patterns of trade between countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why. Traditional trade theory assumes that countries are different and will exchange different kinds of goods with each other; Mr. Krugman’s theories have explained why worldwide trade is dominated by a few countries that are similar to each other, and why some countries might import the same kinds of goods that it exports.

Paul Krugman
Mr. Krugman has been an Op-Ed columnist at the New York Times since 1999. A collection of his recent columns can be found here.
In 1991 Mr. Krugman received the John Bates Clark medal, a prize given every two years to “that economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge.”

Mr. Krugman continues to teach at Princeton. This semester Mr. Krugman is teaching a graduate-level course on international monetary policy and theory, covering such timely subjects as international liquidity crises. According to Princeton’s Web site, four students are currently enrolled in the class. In recent years he has also taught courses on the welfare state and international trade.

Monday’s award is the last of the six prizes and is not one of the original Nobels, but was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel’s memory. Mr. Krugman was the only winner of the award, which includes a prize of about $1.4 million.

Blogger comment:

I am not surprised, one of the most brilliant people in the world. I congratulate him and the New York times which gives us some of the best minds in the media.