Paul Krugman quotes - page 3

Paul Krugman is an American economist, professor, and author, recognized for his influential work in international economics and trade theory. His writings frequently address economic policy, inequality, and globalization. He has received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and is a widely read public intellectual. Here are 150 of his quotes:

You can't explain the votes of places like Clay County as a response to disagreements about trade policy. The only way to make sense of what happened is to see the vote as an expression of, well, identity politics - some combination of white resentment at what voters see as favoritism toward nonwhites (even though it isn't) and anger on the part of the less educated at liberal elites whom they imagine look down on them.

Paul Krugman

It has been obvious for quite a while that Sanders - not just his supporters, not even just his surrogates, but the candidate himself - has a problem both in facing reality and in admitting mistakes.

Paul Krugman

Whether the influence of increasing returns on trade and geography is rising or falling, one thing is clear: much was learned from the intellectual revolution that brought increasing returns into the heart of how we think about the world economy. It wasn't just that economists could make sense of previously puzzling data, we found ourselves able to see things that had previously been in an intellectual blind spot. Many people contributed to this process of enlightenment; I'm proud to have been a part of the journey.

Paul Krugman

Most economists, to the extent that they think about the subject at all, regard the Great Depression of the 1930s as a gratuitous, unnecessary tragedy.

Paul Krugman

The whole subject of the liquidity trap has a sort of Alice-through-the-looking glass quality. Virtues like saving, or a central bank known to be strongly committed to price stability, become vices; to get out of the trap a country must loosen its belt, persuade its citizens to forget about the future, and convince the private sector that the government and central bank aren't as serious and austere as they seem.

Paul Krugman

I would summarize the Keynesian view in terms of four points:1. Economies sometimes produce much less than they could, and employ many fewer workers than they should, because there just isn't enough spending. Such episodes can happen for a variety of reasons; the question is how to respond. 2. There are normally forces that tend to push the economy back toward full employment. But they work slowly; a hands-off policy toward depressed economies means accepting a long, unnecessary period of pain. 3. It is often possible to drastically shorten this period of pain and greatly reduce the human and financial losses by "printing money”, using the central bank's power of currency creation to push interest rates down. 4. Sometimes, however, monetary policy loses its effectiveness, especially when rates are close to zero. In that case temporary deficit spending can provide a useful boost. And conversely, fiscal austerity in a depressed economy imposes large economic losses.

Paul Krugman

When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won't be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right.

Paul Krugman

If there is one single area of economics in which path dependence is unmistakable, it is in economic geography – the location of production in space.

Paul Krugman

As the example of Ronald Reagan shows, real political success comes not simply from appealing to the interests that people currently perceive but from finding ways to redefine their perceived interests, to harness their discontent in favor of changes that you can lead.

Paul Krugman

As Branko says, there was a time when Serbs and Croats seemed to get along fairly well, indeed intermarrying at a high rate. But could anyone now put Yugoslavia back together? At this rate, we'll soon be asking the same question about America.

Paul Krugman

The world is full of self-organizing systems, systems that form structures not merely in response to inputs from outside but also, indeed primarily, in response to their own internal logic. Global weather is a self-organizing system; so, surely, is the global economy.

Paul Krugman

Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run it is almost everything. A country's ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.

Paul Krugman

Where do ideas about economics come from? They come, of course from economists-where by an "economist" I mean someone who thinks and writes regularly about economic issues. But not all economists are alike, and in fact the genus includes two radically distinct species: The professors and the policy entrepreneurs.

Paul Krugman

If growth in East Asia is indeed running into diminishing returns, however, the conventional wisdom about an Asian-centered world economy needs some rethinking.

Paul Krugman

Holding people accountable for their past is O. K., but imposing a standard of purity, in which any compromise or misstep makes you the moral equivalent of the bad guys, isn't. Abraham Lincoln didn't meet that standard; neither did F. D. R. Nor, for that matter, has Bernie Sanders.

Paul Krugman

Now I'm not saying that Keynes was right about everything, that we should treat The General Theory as a sort of secular bible - the way that Marxists treat Das Kapital. But the essential truth of Keynes's big idea - that even the most productive economy can fail if consumers and investors spend too little, that the pursuit of sound money and balanced budgets is sometimes (not always!) folly rather than wisdom - is as evident in today's world as it was in the 1930s. And in these dangerous days, we ignore or reject that idea at the world economy's peril.

Paul Krugman

It is a bit funny, but also quite sad: Those who preach the doctrine of global glut are tilting at windmills, when there are some real monsters out there that need slaying.

Paul Krugman

Nobody can credibly promise to bring the old jobs back; what you can promise - and Mrs. Clinton did - are things like guaranteed health care and higher minimum wages. But working-class whites overwhelmingly voted for politicians who promise to destroy those gains.

Paul Krugman

The Sanders campaign has brought out a lot of idealism and energy that the progressive movement needs. It has also, however, brought out a streak of petulant self-righteousness among some supporters. Has it brought out that streak in the candidate, too?

Paul Krugman

As is often the case with major disputes in economics, the argument over fiscal policy went on for years, with some critics of fiscal policy still defending their position when this book went to press. It seems fair, however, to say that among economists a more or less Keynesian view of the effects of fiscal policy came to prevail. Careful statistical studies at the International Monetary Fund and else where showed that austerity policies have historically been followed by contraction, not expansion. Recent experience, in which countries like Spain and Greece that were forced into severe austerity also experienced severe slumps, seemed to confirm that observation. Furthermore, it was clear that those who had predicted a sharp rise in U. S. interest rates due to budget deficits, leading to conventional crowding out, had been wrong: U. S. long-term interest rates remained near record lows even during the years from 2009 to 2012, when the government ran very large deficits.

Paul Krugman

Consider John Kenneth Galbraith or Lester Thurow, both leading economists in the view of the general public, both with all the formal qualifications, both totally ignored by the academic mainstream. Or consider Robert Mundell, who is still revered for his contributions to international monetary theory, yet whose later incarnation as the father of supply-side economics has similarly been ignored.

Paul Krugman

So the story of the baby-sitting co-op is not a mere amusement. If people would only take it seriously-if they could only understand that when great economic issues are at stake, whimsical parables are not a waste of time but the key to enlightenment-it is a story that could save the world.

Paul Krugman