Krugman's Intellectual Waterloo

mises.org

13 points·bokonist··4 comments

I asked a similar question about Krugman in this thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=656995

The issue was a little bit different. I quoted him saying East Asia had no chance of recovery without currency controls, and being exposed as wrong within two years. I asked why he's recognized as a mainstream economist when he's so consistently wrong.

I got some great responses. The general consensus is that Krugman had made some valuable contributions to the study of international trade, but that he's pretty openly partisan and his popular economics and theories aren't so hot. That's a big paraphrase, there's lots of details, comments, and links in that thread if people are curious.

I was a late comer to that thread, so I'll repeat here the challenge I made there ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=657364 ): Can anyone tell me what exactly Krugman said about trade theory that was both a) novel and b) true?

Krugman is popular for the following reasons a) he belonged to the right social networks b) he's a very good writer and c) he's a very good at defending of policies progressives want to believe in.

Krugman is a good writer which I belive accounts for most of his fame.

Interestingly, Peter Schiff is a good speaker. It's not obvious but if I listen to him for a while I can become convinced of some things that I later am not able to fully convey to others. This is the moment I realize something went wrong with my judgement - I am convinced of something but I can't explain the argument to others.

As the mises institute once aptly put it, krugman is a part-time economist and full-time partisan.

He spoke at my graduation and he definitely has an insightful mind, but I think he too often conflates his two mistresses of economics and politics.

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