Get Krugman

Brad DeLong rounds up the most hilarious blogospheric commentary on the Paul Krugman Nobel Prize. My favorite is this one:

Jonah Goldberg teamed with an Anonymous Coward: Krugman couldn’t be more different. He routinely fudges facts and, when called on it, refuses to admit error. He never presents both sides of an argument dispassionately and then uses reason and observed experience to discern the truth. He consistently demonizes anyone who doesn’t agree with him. His shrill, hysterical voice trivializes honest differences and invites counter-attack rather than reasoned rebuttal. Plus he’s not even well-informed on many issues that fall outside his academic specializations. I know the Nobel committee doesn’t judge entirely on the basis of someone’s career, but Krugman’s Nobel should make them rethink this. He continues to use his NYTimes column in a way that diminishes the intellectual standards of his field. This does significant, long-run harm to what the Nobel Committee calls “Economic Sciences,” perhaps entirely offsetting the value of Krugman’s academic contributions.

I love the idea of a man whose last book accuses mainstream American liberalism of being a form of fascism complaining about someone else’s “shrill, hysterical voice.”

Meanwhile if you, like me, have read a lot of Paul Krugman’s popular writing but don’t know much about New Trade Theory or New Economic Geography, check out Ed Glaeser’s accounts which I found very enlightening.