Nobelist Paul Krugman in Athens on April 17

Acclaimed American economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is scheduled to visit Athens on April 17 to deliver a speech entitled “Europe: What next?” as part of the “Megaron Plus” events taking place in the Greek capital’s Concert Hall. The 2008 Nobel Prize winner is invited in Athens by ADGI-INERPOST.

“America’s most prominent political columnist,” as characterized by The Washington Monthly magazine is going to focus on Europe’s future and its economic development through the crisis and the austerity policies. After the 2008 economic crisis, Krugman was a leading critic of austerity. Krugman argued that leading economies were stuck in a classic liquidity trap and governments could print money and run large budget deficits without causing a rise in interest rates or inflation. His model of liquidity trap broadly predicted the low inflation, low growth recovery. Krugman became a household name in part because of his ability to popularize and simplify complex economic problems. Krugman is also quite direct, openly criticizing politicians and other economists.

Who is Paul Krugman

Krugman was born in Albany, New York, on February 28, 1953, and grew up in Nassau county. He went to John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, before graduating with a B.A. summa cum laude in economics from Yale University in 1974.

Krugman earned a PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977, under the guidance of his thesis adviser Rudi Dornbusch. In the late 1970s, Krugman began working on a monopolistically competitive trade model. He later explained the importance of consumers’ preference for diversity, which explains the survival of higher cost goods that have a distinctive brand. This field of New Trade Theory became one of his areas of expertise and would form the basis for his Nobel Prize. Krugman is generally supportive of free trade and globalization. His work on New Trade Theory slowly evolved into New Economic Geography (NEG). His seminal 1991 paper on NEG in the Journal of Political Economy became one of the most cited economic works in this field.

Krugman has worked at various top universities, such as MIT, London School of Economics and Princeton University. In 1982, he spent a year working for the Council of Economic Advisers under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Krugman views himself as a Keynesian economist. He has also promoted the IS-LM model invented by John Hicks. Although identified with elements of new-Keynesianism, he is critical of the complexity and rigidity of some of the New Keynesian models.