Larvatus Prodeo

The ‘Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2008′ has gone to Paul Krugman “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity”. But as John Quiggin says, “The reality … is that economics prizes are awarded for careers.” As a vocal critic of the Bush Administration since it came to office in 2000, his views on politics will be much discussed today. But I thought readers might appreciate this from 2004:

“An Indian born economist once explained his personal theory of reincarnation to his graduate economics class,” Paul Krugman writes in the opening paragraph of his Preface to Peddling Prosperity. “‘If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist,’ he said, ‘you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist.’” Krugman then continues, “A sociologist might say that this quote shows what is wrong with economists: they want a subject that is fundamentally about human beings to have the mathematical certainty of the hard sciences . . . . But good economists know that the speaker was talking about something else entirely: the sheer difficulty of the subject. Economics is harder than physics; luckily it is not quite as hard as sociology.” (1994:xi)

Elsewhere: Tyler Cowen has an exhaustive post on Krugman with links galore … followed by a hilarious comments thread [ht: CT]

Joshua Gans has some personal reflections, and Peter Martin comments