Bush critic Krugman wins economics Nobel

updated 6:01 p.m. ET Oct. 13, 2008

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Paul Krugman, whose relentless criticism of the Bush administration includes opposition to the $700 billion financial bailout, won the Nobel prize in economics Monday for his work on international trade patterns.

The Princeton University professor and New York Times columnist is the best-known American economist to win the prize in decades.

The Nobel committee commended Krugman’s work on global trade, beginning with a 10-page paper in 1979 that knit together two fields of study, helping foster a better understanding of why countries produce similar products and why people move from the small towns to cities.

Krugman (pronounced KROOG-man) is best known for his unabashedly liberal column in the Times, which he has written since 1999. In it, he has said Republicans are becoming “the party of the stupid” and that the economic meltdown made GOP presidential nominee John McCain “more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago.”

But at a news conference, Krugman said he doesn’t think he won the prize because of his political views.

“Nobel prizes are given to intellectuals,” he said. “A lot of intellectuals are anti-Bush.”

Tore Ellingsen, a member of the prize committee, acknowledged that Krugman was an “opinion maker” but said he was honored solely for his research.

“We disregard everything except for the scientific merits,” Ellingsen told The Associated Press.

Following last year’s Nobel peace prize award to former Vice President Al Gore and 2002’s peace prize to former President Jimmy Carter, some on the right have dismissed the Nobels as politically motivated. By picking one of the best-known voices on the left three weeks before a presidential election, The Royal Swedish Academy is sure to provoke further criticism.

But academic economists said Krugman’s work merited the prize.

“The prize was rightly given for his early academic work on the theory of international trade, not his more recent work as a political pundit,” said Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Winners of the Nobel economics prize Recent winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and their research, according to the Nobel Foundation: —2008: American Paul Krugman for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity. —2007: Americans Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson for laying the foundations of mechanism design theory. —2006: American Edmund S. Phelps for furthering the understanding of the trade-offs between inflation and its effects on unemployment. —2005: Robert J. Aumann, of Israel and the United States, and American Thomas C. Schelling, for their work in game-theory analysis. —2004: Finn E. Kydland, Norway, and Edward C. Prescott, United States, for their contribution to dynamic macroeconomics. —2003: Robert F. Engle, United States, and Clive W.J. Granger, Britain, for their use of statistical methods for economic time series. —2002: Daniel Kahneman, United States and Israel, and Vernon L. Smith, United States, for pioneering the use of psychological and experimental economics in decision-making. —2001: George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz, United States, for research into how the control of information affects markets. —2000: James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden, United States, for their work in developing theories to help analyze labor data and how people make work and travel decisions. Source: The Associated Press

Krugman, 55, was the lone winner of the $1.4 million award and the latest in a string of Americans to be honored. It was only the second time since 2000 that a single laureate won the prize, which is typically shared by two or three researchers.

Krugman is the rare academic economist who is also part of pop culture. A YouTube video of Krugman’s joint appearance with Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly on “Meet the Press” has been viewed by more than 100,000 people. Besides co-authoring textbooks, he has written two best-sellers, “The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century” and “The Conscience of a Liberal.”

Always outspoken, Krugman has compared the current financial crisis to Great Depression, saying Monday that he hoped a global effort to address the crisis might work.

“I’m slightly less terrified today than I was on Friday,” he said, referring to the weekend talks among European leaders that led to the partial nationalization of British banks and unlimited access to U.S. dollars for banks worldwide.

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