Roosevelt Institute 2013 Four Freedoms Medal: Freedom of Speech
As one of the world’s best known and most acclaimed economists, Paul speaks on the leading issues of the day affecting the world economy. An insightful, outspoken Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, he is a passionate and articulate speaker, with a gift for relating global economic events to his audiences, and committed to speaking the truth as he sees it in the most compelling terms.
His twice-weekly Op-Ed pieces for the New York Times model the depth of insight and the unflinchingly outspoken style he brings to his speeches.
The most recent of Professor Krugman’s many books, Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future. Drawn mainly from his New York Times column, Paul tackles the complexities of many policy issues.
His previous books include End This Depression Now!, a call for action, The Conscience of a Liberal, The Great Unraveling, a bestseller, and The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, a response to the financial crisis, an updated edition of his 1999 book, The Return of Depression Economics.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Krugman’s work in economics has earned him broad acclaim from the economic press and several prestigious awards, including the John Bates Clark medal from the American Economic Association for his work in international trade and finance. He is recognized worldwide as a leader in the fields of economic geography and the role of increasing returns in shaping international trade.
Paul Krugman is a Distinguished Professor in Economics at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, a core faculty member at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, and Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Senior Scholar. Previously, he was professor of economics at Princeton University.
He was chosen as one of Bloomberg’s 50 Most Influential People in Global Finance, 2011. He has been honored to be one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for four straight years (2009-2012).
Krugman the Economist: Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his groundbreaking work on international trade and economic geography. (Here is a description in his own words of the work for which he won the Prize.) He is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes.
Professor Krugman is one of the founders of the “new trade theory,” a major rethinking of the theory of international trade, for which he also received the John Bates Clark medal in 1991 from the American Economic Association, a prize given every two years to “that economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge.”
He also is the leading pioneer in economic geography — the economic dynamics that determine how and why certain places (like Silicon Valley) end up specializing economically and the advantages this kind of clustering brings to companies and economies. For example, there has been no important commercial traffic on the Erie Canal since 1850, yet the head start that canal gave to New York City has allowed New York to remain the largest US city and its major commercial center to this day.
The overarching theme to his work: bringing the theory of increasing returns into the economic mainstream. ‘Increasing returns’ is the technical term for the phenomenon that success tends to breed further success—that economics is dynamic, not static, and that the multiple choices available to economies eventually get sorted out through the accumulation of initial advantages that may be accidents of history. He’s applied increasing returns theory to international trade and geographic clustering.
Mr. Krugman’s current academic research focuses on economic and currency crises.
