Paul Krugman

It's impossible to read these twenty-year-old essays and not feel like many of them haven't aged a day. Whether you agree with them or not, or whether you even like the infamously acerbic Krugman or not, to a remarkable extent the logic behind the majority of these columns still feels fresh and relevant. I'm a big fan of his for a few reasons: I learned a lot of macro from his writings in grad school, I enjoy his lucid writing style, and I share his social-democratic political leanings with show more an appreciation for free trade and strong markets. All of these elements are here (though he's still in his "criticize both sides equally" phase; the first few essays have a slight hippie-punching feel to them before he gets around to deflating conservative myths), and out of his pre-George W. Bush books this might be the strongest of the lot due to its wide range of subjects and compact ability to educate and entertain.

Krugman's mission in this assortment of Slate columns is popularization, taking on a Carl Sagan-ish role of accessibly discussing contemporary economic issues. And, much like Sagan, in addition to simply explaining what simple concepts are he also wants his readers to respect the idea of rigor, and to have an appreciation of how difficult it is to make true intellectual progress when it comes to seemingly-simple economic questions. Complicated subjects like inequality ("An Unequal Exchange"), inflation (like "A Good Word For Inflation"), technological progress ("Technology's Wonders"), unemployment ("What Is Wrong With Japan"), and commodity speculation ("How Copper Came a Cropper") have clearly presented numbers and reasoning, with an eye towards teaching the reader how to know when someone is grounding their analysis in facts or opinion. He's of course unsparing in his criticism of people who he thinks are fools or liars, but even if you don't like Krugman because of his tone, facts don't lie; it really is truly remarkable that a guy like Newt Gingrich is even stupider today than he was back in 1995.

One of the main takeaways from this this essay collection, above and beyond whether you agree with any specific column or not, is that it really helps to have a consistent framework for thinking about economic issues. Is globalization good or bad? Should the US reduce the trade deficit? What are the effects of inflation on interest rates? Can we reduce unemployment to zero and have fast growth like we did in the 60s? One well-thought-out theory can be worth dozens of unsorted facts. Not every essay is as strong as it could be, but even a blunt and infuriating essay like "In Praise of Cheap Labor" is more sophisticated than its critics admit, and looks stronger every day that formerly closed countries like China develop and transform their sweatshops into boring Western 9-to-5s. He hasn't ever written a big profession-shaking epic like his hero Keynes, and at this phase in his career he probably won't ever get around to it, but his guiding ethos of progress through and with - not instead of - capitalism remains a worthy philosophy to subscribe to. show less

I always feel the same way after I finish one of his books: "Man, that makes total sense, how could anyone reasonably disagree that inequality is skyrocketing/we need universal health care/China needs to revalue it's currency/the Republican Party is insane/free trade rules?" Even his detractors, like the Wall Street Journal editorial crew, or the legions of bloggers who exist only to find fault with his writing, readily admit that he's been immensely successful as a popularizer of economics show more and as a partisan for his own views. I like him not only because he shares my views as a liberal of the New Deal/Great Society school of thought, but because he has a way of illustrating complex debates in a way that's not only clear, but that seems to me as the way I would have looked at it all along, if only I could have put it into words, and he gives me a solid framework to say why.

It's very cliche to compliment someone as "objective" because they "criticize both sides" (think of all that fawning praise for South Park back in the day) and take a pox-on-both-your-houses attitude towards big issues. I think that's dumb, not only because it assumes that there are only two sides to a debate, and that it's always somehow possible to take an average of each position and make sense (does it really make much sense to invade half of Iraq, or cut income taxes for people whose last names are A-M?), but because it rewards an unthinking "moderatism", where you don't really have to think about what people are saying, only that you want to somehow triangulate yourself and avoid doing any critical thinking. That's exactly what this book is about - criticizing both right-wing proponents of supply-side and Friedmanist monetary theories as well as left-wing proponents of strategic trade theory in a way that illustrates not only why you can't simply say "let's split the difference between these theories and call it a compromise", but also why it's vital to take the time to think clearly about what people are telling you and whether their numbers add up, and why you can't always trust people on your "side".

Peddling Prosperity is very clearly a book aimed at a popular audience, both because most (but not all) numerical exercises are relegated to the appendix and because it's structured as a narrative, of the near-mortal wounds that Keynesian economics suffered in the 70s after its triumphs in the postwar era, the rise of potential conservative alternatives, and those alternatives' eventual failures and the (seeming) Keynesian resurgence in the early 90s. It was published in 1994, so it's a bit out of date, but it's actually very interesting to see echoes of the then-cutting edge worries about Japan and transpose them 15 years to the present-day, since most of the debates about government activism, the deficit, and international competitiveness haven't aged a day. Press releases and popular discussions of issues certainly haven't gotten any more sophisticated, so it's somehow still a breath of fresh air to read explanations of trade or productivity that are aimed at a wide audience without being dumbed-down to sound bites.

Virtually every section, if you read closely, follows an A-B-C sort of script: someone is claiming A must be true, but here is data B, which actually implies C, so therefore they're wrong. This pattern shows up very frequently in his writing, and this book is no exception. Harsh, but always rigorous discussion of the history and reasoning behind various alternatives to Keynesian economics over the years are backed up by charts, graphs, and most importantly, the models behind these ideas. Part of the reason why stupid notions like endless tax cuts for rich people persist in the world, aside from the obvious self-interested aspect of wealthy donors and lobbyists, is because those notions are sold within a seemingly-plausible framework with a strong narrative: by cutting taxes for rich people, they will be able to create more jobs for people and more prosperity than if that wealth is given to other people; the more taxes you cut, the more jobs you create, and conversely, the more taxes you raise on these wealth-creators, the more jobs you destroy. By walking the reader through these implicit models, showing you the data, and giving you the reasons why they're wrong, Krugman both avoids simply throwing out ad-hominems (though there are some barbs in here) and gives you a way to think about future claims. One of the reasons why he has earned such a reputation as a strong liberal is due to his staunch opposition to the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003; reading the math behind why the Reagan tax cuts failed (and, closer to home, why the recent late-2010 extension of the Bush cuts will fail utterly to bring prosperity), you become... not particularly optimistic, let's say, about people's ability to learn from their mistakes.

The subtitle coins an excellent phrase which I am surprised has not gained wider currency: the Age of Diminished Expectations. While this book was written before the Clinton-era boom had really taken off, I remember growing up in the 90s and thinking of it as a time of seemingly permanent growth. Looking from today at the numbers, though - the steady decrease in productivity growth, the increasing inequality, the growing strength of the truly awful movement conservative wing of the Republican Party - I'm amazed at how satisfied people are with such mediocre growth when compared to the global trente glorieuses after the war. It would be easy to despair at the gradual lowering of the bar, but even during his discussion of massive failures, like the monetarist experiments in Thatcher-era Britain, the emphasis is on the math and logic behind why those policies failed, which prevents the book from sounding too depressing even if the conclusions behind it are plenty depressing.

The ending section about the rise of the strategic traders in the Clinton administration is a model of analytical clarity - the presentation of subtle economic logic about how the budget of a national economy is not like that of a company's balance sheet and all the mischief that that fallacy immediately brings to mind Obama making exactly these mistakes with his Council on Competitiveness, chaired by the CEO of a company that has outsourced thousands of jobs and shuffled around billions in taxable income. So even though the endless recurrence of terrible economic ideas will not end anytime soon, the book offers invaluable perspective on their sources and how to evaluate them. The focus is always on the data, and while Krugman may not always be right (his dismissal of critics of Japan's trade surplus in the 90s sits oddly with his criticism of China's seemingly very similar trade surplus in the 00s, even given the vastly different economic circumstances), he gives you all the tools and ammunition you need to form a coherent counter-argument. show less

That the developed world has been caught in a perfectly foreseeable, avoidable, solvable slump for four years now is so stupid it would be funny if it weren't so sad. Millions of man-years have been thrown away as the result of economic policies that shouldn't have passed the laugh test in an age where anyone can pick up a book on the Great Depression and read about what went wrong. Yet here we are, trillions of dollars poorer than we should be, standing by as elected leaders make decisions show more on faulty, imagined, or no evidence at all. Krugman is a lot more calm when he discusses these things and those people than I would be, and even though his perfectly reasonable prescriptions for economic recovery have an uphill climb to the lofty heights of discourse where real decisions get made, the fact that they are so straightforward and sensible gives me some hope for the future. This book is largely a synthesis of material from the past few years on his blog cleaned up, re-ordered, and organized, which would be somewhat disappointing if the material were not so strong. It reminds me of his earlier The Return of Depression Economics in its subject-hopping structure, but with a somewhat stronger central narrative in the vein of The Conscience of a Liberal. The book tackles many subjects familiar to frequent blog readers: the roots of the crisis; failures of monetary policy; the inadequacy of the stimulus; the roots and remedies for the Euromess; lessons of the Great Depression; and the illogic of conservative doctrines like "expansionary austerity", the "confidence fairy", and "immaculate inflation". Its prescriptions are those that have been tested by history: more direct public infrastructure spending, aid to states (or countries in the case of Europe), accommodative monetary policy including a temporarily higher inflation target, and better trade and environmental policy. As he discusses and refutes objections to his analyses, the Republican Party is a frequent object of criticism, as are clueless European leaders, the finance-industrial complex, economists who have been either misinformed or unhelpful, and fatuous pundits. Krugman has been criticized for his dismissive tone towards people he disagrees with, and while he doesn't ever call someone an idiot outright here, he certainly doesn't spare feelings. Since I happen to agree with his analysis I don't mind when he calls someone out, but I would hope that readers of other political persuasions could concentrate rebuttals on disagreements over any of the facts he talks about and not get hung up over a dismissive tone or academic nerd burns. One of the things that should be obvious to everyone is that no one is helped by this recession-verging-on-depression, and we should all be looking for ways to solve this crisis without regard to the affiliation of who's proposed the solutions. Everyone has a stake in future prosperity, because a rising tide might lift all boats, but an ebbing tide will surely sink many. Krugman doesn't have quite the soaring rhetoric of his hero Keynes, but in clarity and rigor he should certainly be considered on the same plane. Here's hoping that important people check this book out, and that they will have the "Rooseveltian resolve" to take the courageous steps we need to get people back to work. show less

I've been a regular reader of his always-interesting New York Times columns for years, but ever since I studied his work on trade and urban geography in grad school (coincidentally, the work that would gain him the 2008 Economics Nobel Prize), I've been a huge admirer of his serious economics work as well. The Conscience of a Liberal is a response of sorts to Barry Goldwaters's highly influential 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative, making the case that if the United States is to show more remain a country where everyone can pursue their own happiness in maximum liberty and peace, the Reagan-era policies that benefit the rich few at the expense of the poor many must be reversed, and a new New Deal - chiefly the establishment of universal health care - is the best way to encourage opportunity and ensure that everyone can fully participate in the ever-changing American economy. It's also an enlightening history of the modern liberal and conservative movements that does a great job of showing the direct lineage from historical states' rights segregationists to modern health care reform opponents, and how calm debate and careful thinking can and should win out over narrow self-interest and greed. A good way to tell a good book is by how much it gives you to think about after you've finished, and The Conscience of a Liberal had me thinking about it for months afterwards. show less