Columnist Biography: Paul Krugman


aul Krugman joined The Times on October 7, 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page and continues as Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Mr. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974, and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977, where he was the Ford International Professor of Economics. From 1977 to 1979 he taught at Yale then moved to MIT, where he remained on the faculty from 1979 to 1994, he then moved to Stanford from 1994 until 1996. In 1982-3, on leave from MIT, he served as chief international economist of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Mr. Krugman is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes. His professional reputation rests largely on work in international trade and finance; he is one of the founders of the "new trade theory," a major rethinking of the theory of international trade. In recognition of that work, in 1991 the American Economic Association awarded him its John Bates Clark medal, a prize given every two years to "that economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge." Mr. Krugman’s current academic research is focussed on the application of ideas from complexity theory and the concept of self-organizing systems to economics.

At the same time, Mr. Krugman has written extensively for a broader public audience, including a monthly column under the byline "The Dismal Scientist" for the Internet magazine Slate. Some of his recent articles on economic issues, originally published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and other journals, are reprinted in Pop Internationalism and The Accidental Theorist.

Mr. Krugman was born on February 28, 1953.