Krugman’s Nobel
I woke up to the news this morning that Professor Paul Krugman of Princeton University won the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2008. He had a modest entry on his blog, which I have followed for some years now. He followed this in the afternoon by another entry with autobiographical essays written in 1992, around the time when I was studying his ideas on international trade theory from his International Economics textbook.
Masud recommended I take the course when I told him we would use Krugman’s book, although I did not know who he was. I didn’t realize then that Chapters 6, 7 (of the 2nd edition that I have) of his book were based on his own theories that were about 10 years old at the time. I sed to visit Masud at MIT frequently at the time. I remember him telling me about Rudi Dornbusch, with whom he was taking a class, becaming advisor to the Russian government when the U.S.S.R dissolved, and that he was Krugman’s advisor while Krugman was a student.
Of course, the name stuck with me. I bought and read more of Krugman’s books, with my favorite being Rethinking International Trade. I followed his writings on his MIT website and in Slate magazine – this was pointed out to me by my professor Steven Landsburg, who still writes the Everyday Economics column for Slate magazine. Once Abbu started reading the New York Times, he got me hooked on Krugman’s columns which Abbu read regularly. It was interesting that Krugman’s Nobel Prize brought back so many memories for me from over the last 17 years!
I listened to his interview today on NPR. Inevitably, one of the questions that the interviewer asked was who should have seen this economic crisis coming. I was surprised by the simplicity of his answer, “I should have.” He went on to talk about how there were signs along the way, and nobody paid to much attention, including himself.
