Biography of Paul Krugman

One of the most admired and influential economists of modern times, Paul Krugman is a professor of economics and international affairs at the U.S.'s famed Princeton University. He has taught at various reputed institutions, such as, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), London School of Economics, and Stanford University.

He is the author of over 20 bestselling books, and has written more than 200 papers and articles for various professional journal volumes and newspapers. He also writes a bi-weekly column for the Op-Ed page in The New York Times.

Besides being an expert in international economics and economic geography, he is known for his works like International Trade Theory and New Trade Theory.

Born into a Jewish family in Albany, New York on February 28, 1953, Paul Krugman graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore. He earned a B.A. in Economics from Yale University in 1974, and a PhD from MIT in 1977. He joined Princeton University in the year 2000, and has remained there since. He has been married twice.

His first wife, Robin L. Bergman, is an award-winning designer. Currently, he is married to Dr. Robin Wells, his second wife and a fellow professor at Princeton.

Between 1982 and 1983, Krugman served in the Reagan administration as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers. In 1993, when Bill Clinton became the president of the United States, he considered Krugman for an important post, but later Krugman's candidature was passed over.

His outspokenness was believed to be the main reason for him not getting the job. Later, he was passionately critical of the economic policies of former President George W. Bush, and repeatedly expressed his disappointment in the Op-Ed page in The New York Times.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in the year 2008 for his work on the New Trade Theory, which deals with the analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity. He first published his journal on the New Trade Theory in 1979, in the Journal of International Economics.

He was presented the John Bates Clark Medal in 1991 by the American Economic Association. This medal is given to economists who are below 40 years of age, and have made significant contributions in the field of economics.

He has also won the William Alonso Memorial Prize (2002) for Innovative Work in Regional Science, given by the North American Regional Science Council, Nikkei Prize for Excellent Books in Economic Science co-authored with Masahisa Fujita and Anthony Venables (2001), Adam Smith Award (1995) given by the National Association for Business Economics.

George Eccles Prize (1981) for Excellence in Economic Writing given by the Columbia University Business School. Recently, he was awarded the Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa by University of Toronto, Canada in 2013.

He has written columns for several newspapers and magazines, including Fortune, Slate, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, Washington Monthly, and Harper's. His contribution to the Op-Ed page in The New York Times led the Washington Monthly to declare him the most important political columnist in America:

"He is almost alone in analyzing the most important story in politics in recent years - the seamless melding of corporate, class, and political party interests at which the Bush administration excels."

In 2003, Paul Krugman published his book 'The Great Unraveling', a collection of his columns, which went on to become a bestseller. His other major books are The 'Conscience of a Liberal', 'Microeconomics', and 'The Return of Depression Economics'. In 2012, he published a book titled 'End This Depression Now!', in which he argued to end the austerity measures and cut in government spending, which is prolonging the depression.

He also served as one of the many economists on a panel that advised Enron on economic and political issues. He resigned when he accepted the offer from The New York Times to become a regular columnist. He was accused of having a conflict of interest, when news of the Enron scandal broke out, but till today, he denies all the charges.