The crisis prize in times of crisis

Krugman is a professor at Princeton University and was a former adviser to U.S. president Ronald Reagan.

He has been a harsh critic of President George W. Bush for everything from his economic policies to Iraq and has been especially strident about the current U.S. and world financial crises.

A Nobel prize being awarded to a global trade specialist during a world economic crisis is timely.

He supports subsidies for key industries as a way to gain competitive advantage.

Krugman described the recent meeting of the G7 financial ministers in Washington as a failure of leadership and that their final statement was “written in code” which might lead to further panic among investors.

“I think the financial ministers just failed a test, or at best got a C minus,” he was reported as saying.
 
Professor Krugman’s award, worth $US 1.4 million, is the last of six Nobel prizes announced this year. In 1968, the prize in economic sciences became the only one to be added to the original list established in 1895.