The center, colloquially known as the five or the pivot, is one of the standard positions in a regulation basketball game. The center is normally the tallest player on the team, and often has a great deal of strength and body mass as well. A typical NBA center is between 6'10" (2.08 m) and 7'3" (2.21 m).

In many cases, the center's primary role is to use his or her size to score and defend from a position close to the basket. A center who possesses size along with athleticism and skill constitutes an unparalleled asset for a team. The centers are also generally the players who are chosen to take jump balls.

There has been occasional controversy over what constitutes a "true center". For example, some would say that Tim Duncan, although listed throughout his career as a power forward, is actually a center, because of his size and style of play. Nonetheless, the judgment of whether a given player is a center or power forward is often highly subjective. Because there are currently so few people who meet the ideal size requirements of an NBA center, teams will sometimes find it necessary to play an individual at that position who would be more effective as a power forward.

It should also be noted that centers and power forwards often have low free throw percentages. Because of this, it is not uncommon for the opposing team to purposely foul and therefore send them to the line, especially late in games. This has been a common strategy used against certain centers who have continuously struggled with free throws; examples include Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O'Neal, and Dwight Howard. The technique of fouling a poor free throw shooter in order to win back possession in the hope that the player will (as usual) miss his free throws is sometimes known as the Hack-a-Shaq strategy. Nevertheless, there are centers who are particularly accurate from the free throw line, such as retired Lithuanian great Arvydas Sabonis or his currently active countryman Žydrūnas Ilgauskas, the latter of whom is one of the few centers along with Yao Ming in the NBA regularly assigned to shoot free throws after technical fouls.

Centers are among the leaders in blocks and rebounds and are said to "anchor" defenses. It is common for centers to roam the paint, and therefore block a high numbers of shots, especially when their man does not have the ball.

The tallest player to ever be drafted in the NBA was the 7'8" (2.33 m) Yasutaka Okayama from Japan, though he never played in the NBA. The tallest players to ever play in the NBA, at 7'7" (2.31 m) are centers Gheorghe Mureşan and Manute Bol. Standing at 7'2" (2.18 m), Margo Dydek is the tallest player to have ever played in the WNBA.

History of the center position

Emergence of the Center

The center is considered a necessary component for a successful team, especially in professional leagues such as the NBA. Great centers have been the foundation for most of the dynasties in both the NBA and NCAA. The 6’10" (2.08 m) George Mikan pioneered the Center position, shattering the widely-held perception that tall players could not develop the agility and coordination to play basketball well, and ushering in the role of the dominant big man. He led DePaul University to the NIT title, then, after turning professional, won seven National Basketball League, Basketball Association of America and NBA Championships in his ten year career (1946–56), nine of them with the Minneapolis Lakers. Using his height to dominate opposing players, Mikan invented the hook shot and the shot block; as a consequence, the NCAA, and later NBA, adopted the goaltending rule, and, in 1951, the NBA widened the foul lane, a decision known as the 'Mikan rule.'

1960s: The era of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain

In the 1960s, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain further transformed basketball by combining height with a greater level of athleticism than previous centers. Following the retirement of George Mikan, the rivalry of the two big men came to dominate the NBA. Between the two of them, Chamberlain and Russell won nine of the eleven MVP awards in the twelve-year period between 1958 and 1969; played against one another in six Eastern Conference Finals and two NBA Finals between 1959 and 1969. Many of the records set by these two players have endured today. Most notably, Chamberlain and Russell hold the top eighteen season averages for rebounds.

Bill Russell led the University of San Francisco to two consecutive NCAA Championships (1955, 56). He joined the Boston Celtics and helped make them one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history, winning eleven championships over his thirteen-year career (1956–69) as well as five MVP awards. Russell revolutionized defensive strategy with his shot-blocking, rebounding and physical man-to-man defense. While he was never the focal point of the Celtics offense, much of the team's scoring came when Russell grabbed defensive rebounds and initiated fast breaks with precision outlet passes, primarily to point guard Bob Cousy. As the NBA's first African-American superstar, Russell struggled throughout his career with the racism he encountered from fans in Boston, particularly after the 1966–67 season, when he became the first African-American in any major sport to be named player-coach.

His principal rival, Wilt Chamberlain, listed at 7'1" (2.15 m), 275 pounds (124 kg), lacked Russell's supporting cast. Chamberlain played college ball for the Kansas Jayhawks, leading them to the 1957 title game against the North Carolina Tar Heels. Although the Jayhawks lost by one point in triple overtime, Chamberlain was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Briefly a member of the Harlem Globetrotters before joining the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA in 1959, Chamberlain won two Championships, in 1967 with the Philadelphia 76ers and 1972 with the Los Angeles Lakers, although his teams were repeatedly defeated by the Celtics in the Eastern Conference and NBA Finals. He also won seven scoring titles, eleven rebounding titles, and four regular season Most Valuable Player awards, including the distinction, in 1960, of being the first rookie to receive the award. Taller and stronger than any player of his era, he was usually capable of scoring and rebounding at will. Although he was the target of constant double- and triple-teaming, as well as fouling tactics designed to take advantage of his poor free-throw shooting, he set a number of records that have never been broken. Most notably, Chamberlain is the only player in NBA history to average more than 50 points in a season and score 100 points in a single game (both in 1961–62 as a member of the Philadelphia Warriors). He also holds the NBA's all-time records for rebounding average (27.2), rebounds in a single game (55), and career rebounds (23,924).

A lesser-known center of the era was Nate Thurmond, who initially played the forward position opposite Wilt Chamberlain for the San Francisco Warriors but moved to center after Chamberlain was traded to the new Philadelphia franchise. Although he never won a Championship, Thurmond was known as the best screen setter in the league, and his averages of 21.3 and 22.0 rebounds per game in 1966–67 and 1967–68, are exceeded only by Chamberlain and Russell.

Centers in the 1970s and 1980s

In contrast to the Celtics dynasty of the 1960s, the 1970s were a decade of parity in the NBA, with eight different champions and no back-to-back winners. At the college level, the UCLA Bruins, under Coach John Wooden, built the greatest dynasty in NCAA basketball history, winning seven consecutive titles between 1967 and 1973. UCLA had already won two consecutive titles in 1964 and 1965 with teams that pressed and emphasized guard play. After not winning in 1966, Wooden's teams changed their style when Lew Alcindor became eligible. He led UCLA to three championships-in 1967, 68' and 69'-while winning the first Naismith College Player of the Year Award. During his college career, the NCAA enacted a ban on dunking primarily because of Alcindor's dominant use of the shot. His entrance into the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969 was timely, as Bill Russell had just retired and Wilt Chamberlain was 33 years old and increasingly plagued by injuries. After leading the Bucks to the 1971 NBA championship, teamed up with legendary Point guard Oscar Robertson, Alcindor, who had converted to Islam, changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In 1975, Abdul-Jabbar was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, and, after the arrival of Point guard Magic Johnson in 1980, formed part of a new Lakers dynasty that won five NBA titles (1980, 82', 85', 87', 88'). In addition, Abdul-Jabbar won six regular-season MVP awards (1971, '72, '74, '76, '77, '80). At 7'2" (2.18 m), 235 pounds (106 kg), he lacked the strength of Chamberlain in his prime, but had a longer wingspan and ultimately proved more durable, adhering to a strict physical-fitness regime that enabled him to play for twenty years, the longest career in NBA history at the time. Offensively, he was best known for his trademark 'Skyhook' hook-shot, almost impossible to block because of his height and wingspan. His career record of 38,387 points has yet to be broken. Defensively, the 1973–4 season was the first in which the number of blocked shots were kept, and, over the next seven years, Kareem led the league in this statistic or finished second.

Another product of John Wooden's UCLA program, Bill Walton, appeared poised to join the ranks of great centers. He led UCLA to back-to-back NCAA titles in 1972 and 1973, led the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA championship in 1977, and won the NBA MVP the following year. However, his career was plagued with injuries, most infamously a broken bone in his left foot suffered during his MVP season that he never fully recovered from, and he spent most of the following decade on the bench, although he eventually did win a second NBA title as a backup for the Boston Celtics in 1986, when he received the Sixth Man Award. Willis Reed won two championship with the New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973, teamed with Point guard Walt Frazier; although undersized for the center position at 6'9", he had the strength to play inside, was a highly-skilled jump shooter, and was effective at setting picks, a key element in the Knicks motion-oriented offense. The undersized but scrappy Dave Cowens, drafted at the recommendation of Bill Russell, helped the Boston Celtics win two more NBA titles, in 1974 and 1976.

Leading centers of the late 1970s and early 1980s include Wes Unseld of the Baltimore/Washington Bullets, Artis Gilmore of the ABA Kentucky Colonels, Chicago Bulls and San Antonio Spurs; Moses Malone of the Houston Rockets and Philadelphia 76ers; Mark Eaton of the Utah Jazz and Robert Parish of the Boston Celtics, who was acquired from the Golden State Warriors in 1980 for the top overall pick in the NBA Draft. Unseld led the Bullets to four NBA finals appearances and one championship, in 1978. Using his strength and determination to compensate for his lack of size (6'7", i.e. 2.00 m), he was famous for his rebounding, shotblocking, and bone-jarring picks. Artis Gilmore, often overlooked because of the mediocrity of his teams, established himself as the best low-post scorer in the league. He set the NCAA Division I record for career average in rebounds (25.2) at tiny Jacksonville University, and enjoyed an illustrious ABA career before joining the NBA's Chicago Bulls in 1976, playing there until he was traded to San Antonio in 1982, for whom he played until his retirement in 1987. He remains the NBA's career leader in field goal percentage (minimum 2000 shots made) with a 59.9 percentage. Malone, the first high school player to turn professional, was drafted by the Houston Rockets after several years in the ABA, and won two MVP Awards and led Houston to its first NBA Finals in 1981, before joining the Philadelphia 76ers, where, teamed with Julius Erving and Bobby Jones, he won an NBA Championship in 1983, as well as a third League MVP. Never a dominant defender, his quickness and tenacity made him one of the best rebounders in NBA history, particularly on the offensive end; he led the league in rebounds six times in a seven-year period and still holds the NBA record for offensive rebounds.

In the mid-1980s, the 7'4" (2.23 m) Eaton was the most prolific shot-blocker in the league, and, although never a major offensive contributor, won two NBA Defensive Player of the Year Awards while helping transform the lowly Utah Jazz into a playoff contender. Of all these players, none enjoyed the success of Robert Parish, who, with forwards Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, formed the legendary frontcourt of the Boston Celtics team that won three titles (1981, 1984 and 1986). The Celtics' fierce rivalry with the Lakers dominated the NBA during the decade and helped basketball reach an unprecedented level of popularity. Nicknamed "Chief" after a character in the film ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' because of his stoic demeanor, Parish was known for his trademark arching jump-shot—leading many experts to consider him the best medium-range shooting center of all time—and his ability to finish fast-breaks with his surprising speed. Playing until the age of 43, Parish broke Abdul-Jabbar's record for career games played.

Centers in the 1990s

Coach John Thompson, once a seldom-used backup to Bill Russell with the Celtics, developed the Georgetown Hoyas into a chief pipeline for talent at the Center position, producing a succession of great defensive big men in Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning. In 1984, Georgetown, led by Patrick Ewing, defeated the University of Houston, led by Hakeem Olajuwon, to win the NCAA championship. This matchup involved the two premier Centers of their generation.

The Nigerian-born Olajuwon, a former soccer goalkeeper who did not play basketball until age 15, was drafted by the Houston Rockets and paired with power forward Ralph Sampson in what was dubbed the 'Twin Towers' duo. In his second season, 1985–86, the Rockets upset the Lakers in the Western Conference finals. After Michael Jordan's first retirement, Olajuwon established himself as the NBA's most dominant player, leading the Rockets to two consecutive NBA championships in 1994 and 1995. In the 1993–94 season he became the only player in NBA history to win the NBA's Most Valuable Player (MVP), Defensive Player of the Year, and Finals MVP awards in the same season. In both Finals, Olajuwon outplayed two of the league's leading Centers, Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks and the Orlando Magic's young Shaquille O'Neal. Defensively Olajuwon broke Abdul-Jabbar's career record for blocked shots. Offensively, he was best known for his 'Dream Shake,' a series of fakes and spin moves regarded as the pinnacle of big man footwork.

Ewing, from Jamaica by way of the Boston area, was drafted by the New York Knicks in 1985, with whom he spent fifteen of his seventeen seasons in the NBA. An eleven-time All Star, Ewing was one of the best shooting centers in NBA history, possessing a nearly unstoppable baseline jump-shot, as well as a formidable shot blocker and rebounder. Ewing never won an NBA championship, but his Knicks represented the most formidable opponents of the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls dynasty in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Ewing's successor as the starting center at Georgetown, Dikembe Mutombo, who played most of his NBA career with the Denver Nuggets and Atlanta Hawks, was less adept offensively, but proved an even more dominant defender. Mutombo, who had not played basketball before arriving in the U.S. from his native Zaire on a USAID scholarship, was among the greatest shot blockers in NBA history, leading the NBA in blocked-shots five consecutive years, in the course of a career in which he ranked second in the history of the league in blocked shots, behind only Hakeem Olajuwon. He was also the recipient of four NBA Defensive Player of the Year Awards, tied for the record with Ben Wallace.

The other dominant center of the early 1990s was David Robinson. Playing college ball at the United States Naval Academy, his entry into the NBA was delayed by his military service, but he unanimously won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1990 and, in 1995, was voted the MVP. Offensively, Robinson excelled in fast-breaks, running the floor like no 7-footer (2.13 m and above) before or since, while also possessing an effective left-hand jumper. Defensively, his speed and agility helped him hold the distinction of being the only player in NBA history to rank among the top five in rebounds, blocks and steals in a single season.

Several European centers made an impact in the NBA in the 1990s, most notably Lithuanian Arvydas Sabonis of the Portland Trail Blazers, Serbian Vlade Divac of the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings and Dutchman Rik Smits. In keeping with its more perimeter-oriented style of play, European basketball strategy utilized centers as playmakers more than in the NBA, and Divac and Sabonis in particular distinguished themselves as the best passing centers in the league. The 7'3" (2.20 m) Sabonis, who led the Soviet Union to an upset victory over the U.S. en route to a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, was considered by many experts to have been among the best centers in the world in the late 1980s, but did not enter the NBA until he was well past his prime and limited by injuries. He nonetheless played seven solid seasons in Portland before returning to his homeland to finish his career. In his next-to-last season, during which he turned 39, he earned MVP honors in both of the initial two phases of the 2003–04 Euroleague with the club of his youth, Žalgiris.

The 1992 NBA Draft marked the entrance into the league of Shaquille O'Neal, who was drafted by the Orlando Magic. Immediately drawing comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain, the 7'1" (2.15 m), 325-pound (147 kg) O'Neal was billed as potentially the most physically dominating player ever and he quickly lived up to the hype. By his third season, he led the league in scoring and led the Magic to the NBA Finals, where they were swept by the Houston Rockets, with O'Neal out-played by the more experienced Olajuwon. After the 1995–96 season, he signed with the rebuilding Los Angeles Lakers. Former Georgetown center Alonzo Mourning, also drafted in 1992, established himself as a premier big man with the Charlotte Hornets and, later, the Miami Heat, winning two Defensive Player of the Year Awards thanks to his prolific shot blocking while also proving a reliable scoring threat.

Centers in the 21st century

The balance of power shifted to the Western Conference, and the NBA was dominated by the Los Angeles Lakers, who won titles in 2000, '01, '02, '09, and '10, and the San Antonio Spurs, who won in '03, '05, and '07. The Lakers hired former Bulls coach Phil Jackson, and Shaquille O'Neal thrived in Jackson's triangle offense. The San Antonio Spurs were initially led by the 'Twin Towers' tandem of center David Robinson and power forward Tim Duncan. With the arrival of Duncan, the veteran Robinson modified his game by playing primarily in the high post to accommodate Duncan's strengths as a low-post scorer and defender.

In the 1990s, an increasing number of smaller forwards, most notably Dennis Rodman and Charles Barkley, excelled at the traditional Center functions of rebounding, shot-blocking and low-post defense, anticipating a trend towards relying on shorter and quicker post players that has continued into the 2000s, as exemplified by perennial Defensive Players of the Year Ben Wallace and Ron Artest. In the fast break oriented style of offense employed by a growing number of teams, the traditional role of the Center is diminished, if not done away with altogether. Many talented big men have elected to play the more versatile power forward position, giving them more room to run the floor and play outside the paint. The best example of this is Kevin Garnett, a 7-footer (2.13 m and above) who listed his height as 6'11" (2.10 m) in order to avoid playing Center. Under the influence of European basketball, the offensive role of big men has been redefined to include more emphasis on perimeter play, as exemplified by 3-point shooting big men like Dirk Nowitzki, Mehmet Okur, Andrea Bargnani and Channing Frye.

The 7'6" (2.28 m) Yao Ming was drafted by the Houston Rockets with tremendous hype in 2002; possessing unprecedented shooting touch and coordination for a player of his height, many experts predicted he would revolutionize basketball. Yao has proven a highly efficient rebounder and scorer, particularly with his mid-range jump shot, and shown the potential to be an elite defender. Another heralded young prospect, Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, has used his exceptional vertical leap to become one of the top rebounders in the NBA, while his spectacular slam dunks have made him a staple of highlight reels.

Dominant big men continue to anchor the teams that have had the most success in the post-season. Two of the last three teams to win championships have had notable centers: Detroit Pistons/Ben Wallace (2004) and Miami Heat/Shaquille O'Neal (2006). However, O'Neal's playing time has been increasingly limited by injuries, benefiting in the Heat's Championship run from the presence of another veteran, Alonzo Mourning, as his backup. Defensive specialist Ben Wallace, listed at 6'9" (2.05), is considered by most experts as a Power Forward playing out of position, although his strength, leaping ability and uncanny timing has enable him to dominate taller players in the low-post, helping him tie Dikembe Mutombo's record of four NBA Defensive Player of the Year Awards. The San Antonio Spurs have won 2 championships since the retirement of David Robinson, in 2005 and 2007, with Tim Duncan assuming an even greater share of the work as the primary rebounder, shot-blocker and low-post scorer, as well as taking most of the teams jump balls, although he continues to be listed primarily as a power forward. The entry into the NBA of Greg Oden, who won two national high school player of the year awards, led the Ohio State Buckeyes to the NCAA Finals, and is arguably the most physically skilled Center to come into the league since Dwight Howard, has caused many experts to predict a revival in the importance of the Center position.

Centers in women's basketball

In women's basketball, 7'0" (2.13 m) Iuliana Semenova pioneered the center position, helping the Soviet Union women's team win two Olympic Gold medals, in 1976 and 1980, and never losing a game in international competition. Semenova also led her club team, TTT Riga to fifteen European Champion's Cup titles. The 6'8" (2.03 m) Anne Donovan led the Old Dominion University Lady Monarchs to the 1979 Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championship, and was the first female Naismith College Player of the Year recipient in 1983, before enjoying a successful professional career in Japan and Italy.

With the formation of the WNBA, Lisa Leslie established herself as the premier center, and the league's most popular player. The first WNBA player to reach the 3,000 point milestone, she led the Los Angeles Sparks to consecutive titles in 2001 and 2002, and holds the distinction of being the first player to dunk in a WNBA game. Other prominent centers in women's basketball include Australian Lauren Jackson of the Seattle Storm and Karl Malone's daughter Cheryl Ford of the Detroit Shock. Jackson can also be considered a forward-center because she is also a very good outside shooter, leading the WNBA in three-point shooting percentage in one season. Rebecca Lobo led the Connecticut Huskies to a NCAA Championship in 1995, but never recovered from a torn ACL and had a disappointing professional career. When at the University of Oklahoma, Courtney Paris was considered the next dominant female center after becoming the only NCAA player, male or female, to score 700 points, grab 500 rebounds and block 100 shots in a single season; however, she had a disappointing WNBA career and was waived before what would have been the start of her second season in 2010.

List of centers

See also

List of tallest players in National Basketball Association history

Notes

Further reading

Category:Basketball positions Category:Basketball terminology

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"Economy of America" or "American Economy" may refer to:

Economy of North America, comprises the economies of all sovereign countries geographically located in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

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It may also refer to:

Economy of the United States

Name	Niall Ferguson
Birth date	April 18, 1964
Birth place	Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	British
Fields	Financial and economic history
Workplaces	Harvard University Harvard Business SchoolLondon School of Economics
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford
Known for	Counterfactual historyEconomic historyHistory of empire and imperialism
Influences	A J P Taylor, Kenneth Clark, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes
Religion	Atheist
Signature
Footnotes	}}

Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson (born April 18, 1964) is a British historian who specialises in financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.

Ferguson, who was born in Glasgow, is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University as well as William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and also currently the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics. He was educated at the private Glasgow Academy in Scotland, and at Magdalen College, Oxford. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Ferguson advised Senator John McCain's campaign.

In the UK, Ferguson is probably best known as the author of ''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World''. In 2008, Ferguson published ''The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World'', which he also presented as a Channel 4 television series. Both at Harvard College and at LSE, Ferguson teaches a course entitled "Western Ascendancy: The Mainsprings of Global Power from 1600 to the Present."

Early life

Ferguson was born the son of a doctor father and a physics teacher mother in Glasgow on April 18th 1964, and lived for a time near Ibrox Park. He attended The Glasgow Academy.

Ferguson cites his father as instilling in him a strong sense of self-discipline and of the moral value of work, whilst his mother encouraged his creative side. His journalist maternal grandfather encouraged him to write. Unable to decide on studying an English or a History degree at university, Ferguson cites his reading of War and Peace as persuading him towards History. Of late 1970s Glasgow, Ferguson describes "the main industries" of the city as "sectarianism and strike action".

University of Oxford

Ferguson received a Demyship (half-scholarship) at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with a first-class honours degree in History in 1985. He became a Thatcherite by 1982, identifying the position with "the Sex Pistols' position in 1977: it was a rebellion against the stuffy corporatism of the 70s." Whilst at university "He was very much a Scot on the make...Niall was a witty, belligerent bloke who seemed to have come from an entirely different planet." according to Simon Winder. Ferguson has stated that "I was surrounded by insufferable Etonians with fake Cockney accents who imagined themselves to be working-class heroes in solidarity with the striking miners. It wasn't long before it became clear that the really funny and interesting people on campus were Thatcherites."

Rachel Johnson has said of Ferguson at the time: :''He was attractive. He was clever. And I still remember him making me sob with laughter by describing how a man feels if he succeeds in bringing a woman to orgasm (like Jesse Owens at the Olympic stadium in Berlin, he said, raising his arms aloft).''

Johnson commisioned Ferguson to write an essay for a collection: :''Ferguson's piece was one of the first to come in. I can't remember much about it, but it wasn't quite the ticket. I remember sending him a photocopied letter that I was sending to all the contributors, with suggestions, pertaining to his essay, at the bottom. I found his reply in my pigeonhole, a few days later. "Dear Rachel Johnson," it read. "F--- off. Yours, Niall Ferguson." I assumed that he wanted nothing to do with the book again, so I re-commissioned the piece.''

Regarding slights and criticism, Ferguson has stated: "Nobody should ever imagine that they can do that kind of thing to me with impunity. Life is long, and revenge is a dish that tastes best cold. I'm very unforgiving."

Ferguson thus went on to attack Johnson's collection of essays (minus his own contribution) in a newspaper review.

At Oxford, Ferguson improved his German by reading Nietzsche whilst drinking Guinness in the pub with Norman Stone.

Career

Academic career

1983-1986 B.A History Magdalen College, Oxford.

1987–88 Hanseatic Scholar, Hamburg and Berlin

1989–90 Research Fellow, Christ’s College, University of Cambridge

1990–92 Official Fellow and Lecturer, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge

1992–2000 Fellow and Tutor in Modern History, Jesus College, University of Oxford

2000–02 Professor of Political and Financial History, University of Oxford

2002–04 John Herzog Professor in Financial History at Stern School of Business, New York University

2004, continuing. Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

2010, continuing. Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics, located within LSE IDEAS, beginning in 2010.

Ferguson is a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and an advisory fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas.

In May 2010 he announced that Education Secretary Michael Gove in the U.K's newly elected Conservative/Lib Dem government had invited him to advise on the development of a new history syllabus—"history as a connected narrative"— for schools in England and Wales. In June 2011 it was announced that he would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities, a private college in London.

Business career

In 2007, Ferguson was appointed as an Investment Management Consultant by GLG Partners, focusing on geopolitical risk as well as current structural issues in economic behaviour relating to investment decisions. GLG is a UK-based hedge fund management firm headed by Noam Gottesman.

Career as commentator

In October 2007, Niall Ferguson left ''The Sunday Telegraph'' to join the ''Financial Times'', where he is now a contributing editor. He also writes for ''Newsweek''.

Ferguson has often described the European Union as a disaster waiting to happen, and has criticised President Vladimir Putin of Russia for authoritarianism. In Ferguson's view, certain of Putin's policies, if they continue, may stand to lead Russia to catastrophes equivalent to those that befell Germany during the Nazi era.

Subject matter

World War I

In 1998 Ferguson published the critically acclaimed ''The Pity of War: Explaining World War One'', which with the help of research assistants he was able to write in just five months. This is an analytic account of what Ferguson considered to be the ten great myths of the Great War. The book generated much controversy, particularly Ferguson's suggestion that it might have proved more beneficial for Europe if Britain had stayed out of the First World War in 1914, thereby allowing Germany to win. Ferguson has argued that the British decision to intervene was what stopped a German victory in 1914–15. Furthermore, Ferguson expressed disagreement with the ''Sonderweg'' interpretation of German history championed by some German historians such as Fritz Fischer, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Hans Mommsen and Wolfgang Mommsen, who argued that the German Empire deliberately started an aggressive war in 1914 and that the Second Reich was little more than a dress rehearsal for the Third Reich. Likewise, Ferguson has often attacked the work of the German historian Michael Stürmer, who argued that it was Germany's geographical situation in Central Europe that determined the course of German history.

On the contrary, Ferguson maintained that Germany waged a preventive war in 1914, a war largely forced on the Germans by reckless and irresponsible British diplomacy. In particular, Ferguson accused the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey of maintaining an ambiguous attitude to the question of whether Britain would enter the war or not, and thus confusing Berlin over just what was the British attitude towards the question of intervention in the war. Ferguson accused London of unnecessarily allowing a regional war in Europe to escalate into a world war. Moreover, Ferguson denied that the origins of National Socialism could be traced back to Imperial Germany; instead Ferguson asserted the origins of Nazism could only be traced back to the First World War and its aftermath.

The “myths” of World War I that Ferguson attacked, with his counter-arguments in parentheticals, are: That Germany was a highly militarist country before 1914 (Ferguson claims Germany was Europe’s most anti-militarist country) That naval challenges mounted by Germany drove Britain into informal alliances with France and Russia before 1914 (Ferguson claims the British were driven into alliances with France and Russia as a form of appeasement due to the strength of those nations, and an Anglo-German alliance failed to materialize due to German weakness) That British foreign policy was driven by legitimate fears of Germany (Ferguson claims Germany posed no threat to Britain before 1914, and that all British fears of Germany were due to irrational anti-German prejudices) That the pre-1914 arms race was consuming ever larger portions of national budgets at an unsustainable rate (Ferguson claims that the only limitations on more military spending before 1914 were political, not economic) That World War I was, as Fritz Fischer claimed, a war of aggression on part of Germany that necessitated British involvement to stop Germany from conquering Europe (Ferguson claims that if Germany had been victorious, something like the European Union would have been created in 1914, and that it would have been for the best if Britain had chosen to opt out of war in 1914) That most people were happy with the outbreak of war in 1914 (Ferguson claims that most Europeans were saddened by the coming of war) That propaganda was successful in making men wish to fight (Ferguson argues the opposite) That the Allies made the best use of their economic resources (Ferguson argues that the Allies “squandered” their economic resources) That the British and the French had the better armies (Ferguson claims the German Army was superior) That the Allies were more efficient at killing Germans (Ferguson argues that the Germans were more efficient at killing the Allies) That most soldiers hated fighting in the war (Ferguson argues most soldiers fought more or less willingly) That the British treated German prisoners of war well (Ferguson argues the British routinely killed German POWS) That Germany was faced with reparations after 1921 that could not be paid except at ruinous economic cost (Ferguson argues that Germany could easily have paid reparations had there been the political will)

Another controversial aspect of the ''Pity of War'' was Ferguson's use of counterfactual history. Ferguson presented a counter-factual version of Europe under Imperial German domination that was peaceful, prosperous, democratic and without ideologies like Communism and fascism. In Ferguson's view, had Germany won World War I, then the lives of millions would have been saved, something like the European Union would have been founded in 1914, and Britain would have remained an empire and the world's dominant financial power. ''The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker: 1849–1999'' The books won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and were also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award.

Counterfactual history

Ferguson is an academic champion of counterfactual history, and edited a collection of essays exploring the subject titled ''Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals'' (1997). Ferguson likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do and nothing is predetermined. Thus, for Ferguson there are no paths in history that will determine how things will work out. The world is neither progressing nor regressing; only the actions of individuals will determine whether we live in a better or worse world. His championing of the method has been controversial within the field.

In a recent review of Ferguson's book Civilisation, Noel Malcolm who is Senior Research Fellow in History at All Souls College, Oxford University stated that: "Students may find this an intriguing introduction to a wide range of human history; but they will get an odd idea of how historical argument is to be conducted, if they learn it from this book."

Henry Kissinger

In 2003, former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided Ferguson with access to his White House diaries, letters, and archives for what Ferguson calls a "warts-and-all biography" of Kissinger.

Colonialism

Ferguson is critical of what he calls the "self-flagellation" that he says characterizes modern European thought.

"The moral simplification urge is an extraordinarily powerful one, especially in this country, where imperial guilt can lead to self-flagellation," he told a reporter. "And it leads to very simplistic judgments. The rulers of western Africa prior to the European empires were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the slave trade. They showed zero sign of developing the country's economic resources. Did Senegal ultimately benefit from French rule? Yes, it's clear. And the counterfactual idea that somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in economic development doesn't have any credibility at all."

Richard Drayton, Professor of Colonial History at the University of London, has stated that it is correct to associate "Ferguson with an attempt to "rehabilitate empire" in the service of contemporary great power interests."

Islam and Eurabia

Matthew Carr wrote in ''Race & Class'' that "Niall Ferguson, the conservative English historian and enthusiastic advocate of a new American empire, has also embraced the Eurabian idea in a widely reproduced article entitled ‘Eurabia?’, in which he laments the ‘de-Christianization of Europe’ and its culture of secularism that leaves the continent ‘weak in the face of fanaticism’." Carr adds that "Ferguson sees the recent establishment of a department of Islamic studies in his Oxford college as another symptom of the ‘the creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom’" and that in a 2004 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute entitled ‘The end of Europe?’, "Ferguson struck a similarly Spenglerian note, conjuring the term ‘impire’ to depict a process in which a ‘political entity, instead of expanding outwards towards its periphery, exporting power, implodes – when the energies come from outside into that entity’. In Ferguson’s opinion, this process was already under way in a decadent ‘post-Christian’ Europe that was drifting inexorably towards the dark denouement of a vanquished civilisation and the fatal embrace of Islam."

Iraq war

Ferguson supported the Iraq war and isn't necessarily opposed to future incursions in the world.

"It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out."

Economic policy

In its August 15, 2005 edition, ''The New Republic'' published "The New New Deal", an essay by Ferguson and Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a Professor of Economics at Boston University. The two scholars called for the following changes to the American government's fiscal and income security policies:

Replacing the personal income tax, corporate income tax, Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA), estate tax, and gift tax with a 33% Federal Retail Sales Tax (FRST), plus a monthly rebate, amounting to the FRST a household with similar demographics would pay if its income were at the poverty line. See also: FairTax;

Replacing the Old Age benefits paid under Social Security with a Personal Security System, consisting of private retirement accounts for all citizens, plus a government benefit payable to those whose savings were insufficient to afford a minimum retirement income;

Replacing Medicare and Medicaid with a Medical Security System that would provide health insurance vouchers to all citizens, the value of which would be determined by one's health;

Cutting federal discretionary spending by 20%.

A recent ''New Republic'' piece with Harvard's Samuel J. Abrams explored attitudes towards immigration in Europe and the United States.

Criticisms

As scholar

Fellow academics have questioned Ferguson's commitment to scholarship. Benjamin Wallace-Wells, an editor of ''The Washington Monthly'', comments that

"''The House of Rothschild'' remains Ferguson's only major work to have received prizes and wide acclaim from other historians. Research restrains sweeping, absolute claims: Rothschild is the last book Ferguson wrote for which he did original archival work, and his detailed knowledge of his subject meant that his arguments for it couldn't be too grand."

John Lewis Gaddis, a renowned Cold War era historian, characterized Ferguson as having unrivaled "range, productivity and visibility" at the same time as criticising his work as being "unpersuasive". Gaddis goes on to state that "several of Ferguson's claims, moreover, are contradictory".

Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm has praised Ferguson as an excellent historian. However, he has also criticised Ferguson, saying, on the BBC Radio programme "Start the Week", that he was a "nostalgist for empire". Ferguson responded to the above criticisms in a Washington Post "Live Discussions" online forum in 2006.

Exchange with Krugman

In May 2009, Ferguson became involved in a high-profile exchange of views with economist Paul Krugman (then the most recent Economics Nobel Prize winner) arising out of a panel discussion hosted by Pen/New York Review on April 30, 2009, regarding the U.S. economy. Ferguson contended that the Obama administration's policies are simultaneously Keynesian and monetarist, in an incoherent mix, and specifically that the government's issuance of a multitude of new bonds will cause an increase in interest rates. Krugman then extended the criticism to China and the European Union, as both pursued policies more in accord with Ferguson's stance than Krugman's.

Krugman has argued that Ferguson's view is "resurrecting 75-year old fallacies" and full of "basic errors". He has also stated that Ferguson is a "poseur" who "...hasn't bothered to understand the basics, relying on snide comments and surface cleverness to convey the impression of wisdom. It's all style, no comprehension of substance." J. Bradford DeLong of Berkeley agreed with Krugman, concluding "Niall Ferguson does indeed know a lot less than economists knew in the 1920s".

Ferguson criticized Krugman in his December 7, 2009 Newsweek cover story, "An Empire at Risk", claiming that Krugman's partisanship caused him to change his position between 2003 and 2004. Ferguson wrote:

Now, who said the following? 'My prediction is that politicians will eventually be tempted to resolve the [fiscal] crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do: by printing money, both to pay current bills and to inflate away debt. And as that temptation becomes obvious, interest rates will soar.' Seems pretty reasonable to me. The surprising thing is that this was none other than Paul Krugman, the high priest of Keynesianism, writing back in March 2003. A year and a half later he was comparing the U.S. deficit with Argentina's (at a time when it was 4.5 percent of GDP). Has the economic situation really changed so drastically that now the same Krugman believes it was 'deficits that saved us,' and wants to see an even larger deficit next year? Perhaps. But it might just be that the party in power has changed.

Personal life

He married journalist Susan Douglas, whom he met in 1987 when she was his editor at the ''Daily Mail''. They have three children. They separated in 2010 and began divorce proceedings in 2011.

His younger sister is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ferguson was the inspiration for Alan Bennett's play ''The History Boys'', particularly the character of Irwin, a history teacher who urges his pupils to find a counterintuitive angle, and goes on to become a television historian.

Ferguson rises at 6am every day.

Ferguson's self confessed workaholism has placed strains on his personal relations in the past. Ferguson has commented that: :''from 2002, the combination of making TV programmes and teaching at Harvard took me away from my children too much. You don't get those years back. You have to ask yourself: "Was it a smart decision to do those things?" I think the success I have enjoyed since then has been bought at a significant price. In hindsight, there would have been a bunch of things that I would have said no to.''

Relationship with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In February 2010 the ''Daily Mail'' reported that, following a series of affairs, Ferguson had left his wife for former Dutch MP and feminist critic of Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A similar story in ''The Independent'' was followed by the publication of a correction, noting that Ferguson's marriage had broken down before he met Ali. As of June 2011, Ali is reportedly five months pregnant with Ferguson's child. Ferguson dedicated his book ''Civilization'' to "Ayaan". In an interview with ''The Guardian'', Ferguson spoke about his love for Ali, who, he writes in the preface, "understands better than anyone I know what Western civilisation really means – and what it still has to offer the world".

Ali, he continued,

"grew up in the Muslim world, was born in Somalia, spent time in Saudi Arabia, was a fundamentalist as a teenager. Her journey from the world of her childhood and family to where she is today is an odyssey that's extremely hard for you or I to imagine. To see and hear how she understands western philosophy, how she understands the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, of the 19th-century liberal era, is a great privilege, because she sees it with a clarity and freshness of perspective that's really hard for us to match. So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is."

See also

Anglosphere

Chimerica

Bibliography

''The Cash Nexus''

In his 2001 book, ''The Cash Nexus'', which he wrote following a year as Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England, Ferguson argues that the popular saying, "money makes the world go 'round", is wrong; instead he presented a case for human actions in history motivated by far more than just economic concerns.

''Colossus'' and ''Empire''

In his books ''Colossus'' and ''Empire'', Ferguson presents a nuanced and partially apologetic view of the British Empire and in conclusion proposes that the modern policies of the United Kingdom and the United States, in taking a more active role in resolving conflict arising from the failure of states, are analogous to the 'Anglicization' policies adopted by the British Empire throughout the 19th century. In ''Colossus'', Ferguson explores the United States' hegemony in foreign affairs and its future role in the world.

''War of the World''

The ''War of the World'', published in 2006, had been ten years in the making and is a comprehensive analysis of the savagery of the 20th century. Ferguson shows how a combination of economic volatility, decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, and racially/ethnically motivated (and institutionalized) violence resulted in the wars and the genocides of what he calls "History's Age of Hatred". The New York Times Book Review named ''War of the World'' one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2006, while the ''International Herald Tribune'' called it "one of the most intriguing attempts by an historian to explain man's inhumanity to man". Ferguson addresses the paradox that, though the 20th century was "so bloody", it was also "a time of unparalleled [economic] progress". As with his earlier work ''Empire'', ''War of the World'' was accompanied by a Channel 4 television series presented by Ferguson.

''The Ascent of Money''

Published in 2008, ''The Ascent of Money'' examines the long history of money, credit, and banking. In it he predicts a financial crisis as a result of the world economy and in particular the United States using too much credit. Specifically he cites the China–America dynamic which he refers to as Chimerica where an Asian "savings glut" helped create the subprime mortgage crisis with an influx of easy money.

''Civilization''

Published in 2011, ''Civilization: The West and the Rest'' examines what Ferguson calls the most "interesting question" of our day: "Why, beginning around 1500, did a few small polities on the western end of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?" He attributes this divergence to the West's development of six "killer apps" largely missing elsewhere in the world - "competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic". A related documentary ''Civilization: Is the West History?'' was broadcast as a six part series on Channel 4 in March and April of 2011.

Publications

(also a Channel 4 series)

As Contributor

“Europa nervosa”, in Nader Mousavizadeh (ed.), The Black Book of Bosnia (New Republic/Basic Books, 1996), pp. 127–32

“The German inter-war economy: Political choice versus economic determinism” in Mary Fulbrook (ed.), German History since 1800(Arnold, 1997), pp. 258–278

“The balance of payments question: Versailles and after” in Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman and Elisabeth Glaser (eds.), The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 401–440

“‘The Caucasian Royal Family’: The Rothschilds in national contexts” in R. Liedtke (ed.), ‘Two Nations’: The Historical Experience of British and German Jews in Comparison (J.C.B. Mohr, 1999)

“Academics and the Press”, in Stephen Glover (ed.), Secrets of the Press: Journalists on Journalism (Penguin, 1999), pp. 206–220

“Metternich and the Rothschilds: A reappraisal” in Andrea Hamel and Edward Timms (eds.), Progress and Emancipation in the Age of Metternich: Jews and Modernisation in Austria and Germany, 1815–1848 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999), pp. 295–325

“The European economy, 1815–1914” in T.C.W. Blanning (ed.), The Short Oxford History of Europe: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 78–125

“How (not) to pay for the war: Traditional finance and total war” in Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 409–34

“Introduction” in Frederic Manning , Middle Parts of Fortune (Penguin, 2000), pp. vii-xviii

“Clashing civilizations or mad mullahs: The United States between informal and formal empire” in Strobe Talbott (ed.), The Age of Terror (Basic Books, 2001), pp. 113–41

“Public debt as a post-war problem: The German experience after 1918 in comparative perspective” in Mark Roseman (ed.), Three Post-War Eras in Comparison: Western Europe 1918-1945-1989 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002), pp. 99–119

“Das Haus Sachsen-Coburg und die europäische Politik des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in Rainer von Hessen (ed.), Victoria Kaiserin Friedrich (1840–1901): Mission und Schicksal einer englischen Prinzessin in Deutschland (Campus Verlag, 2002), pp. 27–39

“Max Warburg and German politics: The limits of financial power in Wilhelmine Germany”, in Geoff Eley and James Retallack (eds.), Wilhelminism and Its Legacies: German Modernities, Imperialism and the Meaning of Reform, 1890-1930 (Berghahn Books, 2003), pp. 185–201

“Introduction”, The Death of the Past by J. H. Plumb (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. xxi-xlii

“Globalization in historical perspective: The political dimension”, in Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor and Jeffrey G. Williamson (eds.), Globalisation in Historical Perspective (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report) (University of Chicago Press, 2003)

“Introduction to Tzvetan Todorov” in Nicholas Owen (ed.), Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Oxford Amnesty Lectures (Amnesty International, 2003)

“The City of London and British imperialism: New light on an old question”, in Youssef Cassis and Eric Bussière (eds.), London and Paris as International Financial Centres in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 57–77

“A bolt from the blue? The City of London and the outbreak of the First World War”, in Wm. Roger Louis (ed.), Yet More Adventures with Britainnia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain (I.B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 133–145

“The first ‘Eurobonds’: The Rothschilds and the financing of the Holy Alliance, 1818–1822”, in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 311–323

“Prisoner taking and prisoner killing in the age of total war”, in George Kassemiris (ed.), The Barbarization of Warfare (New York University Press, 2006), pp. 126–158

“The Second World War as an economic disaster”, in Michael Oliver (ed.), Economic Disasters of the Twentieth Century (Edward Elgar, 2007), pp. 83–132

“The Problem of Conjecture: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine”, in Melvyn Leffler and Jeff Legro (eds.), To Lead the World: American Strategy After the Bush Doctrine (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Television documentaries

Empire (2003)

American Colossus (2004)

The War of the World (2006)

The Ascent of Money (2008)

Civilization: Is The West History? (2011)

References

Notes

General references

External links

niallferguson.org, Ferguson's official website

RSA Vision webcast - Niall Ferguson on "The Ascent of Money"

Audio: Niall Ferguson in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme ''The Forum''

Hans Koning's Review of 'The Pity of War' (from The Nation)

A Banker to the Rescue, Martin Rubin, The Wall Street Journal, 26 June 2010

"Yesterday's Banker" Liaquat Ahamed, ''The New York Times'', 30 July 2010

Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress discussion with Stewart Brand and Peter Schwartz (futurist) at The Long Now Foundation, May 2008

On the Edge of Chaos discussion of his work at Centre for Independent Studies, July 2010

'The Sun Sets in the West', review of ''Civilization'' in the ''Oxonian Review''

An Interview with Niall Ferguson, ''Oxonian Review'', 9 April 2011

Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:British foreign policy writers Category:Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford Category:Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge Category:Harvard Business School faculty Category:Harvard University faculty Category:New York University faculty Category:People from Glasgow Category:Scottish historians Category:World War I historians

de:Niall Ferguson es:Niall Ferguson fr:Niall Ferguson ko:니얼 퍼거슨 hr:Niall Ferguson it:Niall Ferguson he:ניל פרגוסון ja:ニーアル・ファーガソン no:Niall Ferguson pl:Niall Ferguson fi:Niall Ferguson

name	Robert Shiller
school tradition	New Keynesian economics
color	darkorange
birth date	March 29, 1946
nationality	American
institution	Yale University
field	Financial economicsBehavioral finance
alma mater	Michigan (B.A. 1967)MIT (Ph.D. 1972)
influences	John Maynard KeynesFranco ModiglianiGeorge Akerlof
opposed	Jeremy Siegel
influenced	John Y. CampbellPierre PerronEric Janszen
contributions	''Irrational Exuberance'', Case-Shiller index
awards	Deutsche Bank Prize (2009)
signature	Signature of Robert J Shiller.svg
repec prefix	e | repec_id psh69 }}

Robert James "Bob" Shiller (born Detroit, Michigan, March 29, 1946) is an American economist, academic, and best-selling author. He currently serves as the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University and is a Fellow at the Yale International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management. Shiller has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) since 1980, was Vice President of the American Economic Association in 2005, and President of the Eastern Economic Association for 2006-2007. He is also the co-founder and chief economist of the investment management firm MacroMarkets LLC.

Shiller is ranked among the 100 most influential economists of the world.

Career

Shiller received his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1967, S.M. from MIT in 1968, and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1972. He has taught at Yale since 1982 and previously held faculty positions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota, also giving frequent lectures at the London School of Economics. He has written on economic topics that range from behavioral finance to real estate to risk management, and has been co-organizer of NBER workshops on behavioral finance with Richard Thaler since 1991. His book ''Macro Markets'' won TIAA-CREF's first annual Paul A. Samuelson Award. He currently publishes a syndicated column.

In 1981 Shiller published an article in the ''American Economic Review'' titled "Do stock prices move too much to be justified by subsequent changes in dividends?" He challenged the efficient markets model, which at that time was the dominant view in the economics profession. Shiller argued that in a rational stock market, investors would base stock prices on the expected receipt of future dividends, discounted to a present value. He examined the performance of the U.S. stock market since the 1920s, and considered the kinds of expectations of future dividends and discount rates that could justify the wide range of variation experienced in the stock market. Shiller concluded that the volatility of the stock market was greater than could plausibly be explained by any rational view of the future.

The behavioral finance school gained new credibility following the October 1987 stock market crash. Shiller's work included survey research that asked investors and stock traders what motivated them to make trades; the results further bolstered his hypothesis that these decisions are often driven by emotion instead of rational calculation. Much of this survey data has been gathered continuously since 1989, and is available at Yale's Investor Behavior Project.

In 1991, he formed Case Shiller Weiss with economists Karl Case and Allan Weiss. The company produced a repeat-sales index using home sales prices data from across the nation, studying home pricing trends. The index was developed by Shiller and Case when Case was studying unsustainable house pricing booms in Boston and Shiller was studying the behavioral aspects of economic bubbles. The repeat-sales index developed by Case and Shiller was later acquired and further developed by Fiserv and Standard & Poor, creating the Case-Shiller index.

His book ''Irrational Exuberance'' (2000) – a New York Times bestseller – warned that the stock market had become a bubble in March 2000 (the very height of the market top) which could lead to a sharp decline.

On CNBC's "How to Profit from the Real Estate Boom" in 2005, he noted that housing price rises could not outstrip inflation in the long term because, except for land restricted sites, house prices would tend toward building costs plus normal economic profit. Co-panelist David Lereah disagreed. In February, Lereah had put out his book ''Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?'' signaling the market top for housing prices. While Shiller repeated his precise timing again for another market bubble, because the general level of nationwide residential real estate prices do not reveal themselves until after a lag of about one year, people did not believe Shiller had called another top until late 2006 and early 2007.

In the first decade of the 21st century Shiller co-authored a 2003 Brookings paper, "Is There a Bubble in the Housing Market?". Shiller subsequently refined his position in the 2nd edition of ''Irrational Exuberance'' (2005), acknowledging that “ further rises in the [stock and housing] markets could lead, eventually, to even more significant declines… A long-run consequence could be a decline in consumer and business confidence, and another, possibly worldwide, recession. This extreme outcome … is not inevitable, but it is a much more serious risk than is widely acknowledged.” Writing in the Wall Street Journal in August 2006, Shiller again warned that "there is significant risk of a very bad period, with slow sales, slim commissions, falling prices, rising default and foreclosures, serious trouble in financial markets, and a possible recession sooner than most of us expected.”

Robert Shiller was awarded the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics in 2009 for his pioneering research in the field of financial economics, relating to the dynamics of asset prices, such as fixed income, equities, and real estate, and their metrics. His work has been influential in the development of the theory as well as its implications for practice and policy-making. His contributions on risk sharing, financial market volatility, bubbles and crises, have received widespread attention among academics, practitioners and policy makers alike. In 2010, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers.

{| align="right" | |- | |}

Books

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller, Princeton University Press (2009), ISBN 978-0-691-14233-6.

''The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It'' by Robert J. Shiller, Princeton University Press (2008), ISBN 0691139296.

''The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century,'' by Robert J. Shiller, Princeton University Press (2003), ISBN 0691091722.

''Irrational Exuberance,'' by Robert J Shiller, Princeton University Press (2000), ISBN 0691050627.

''Macro Markets: Creating Institutions for Managing Society's largest Economic Risks'' by Robert J. Shiller, Clarendon Press, New York: Oxford University Press (1993), ISBN 0198287828.

''Market Volatility'', by Robert J. Shiller, MIT Press (1990), ISBN 026219290X.

See also

Behavioral economics

''Journal of Behavioral Finance''

House price index

Herd behavior

Case-Shiller index

2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence

References

External links

Homepage of Robert J. Shiller

Faculty profile at Yale School of Management

*Financial Markets with Professor Robert Shiller, Open Yale Courses

Robert J. Shiller, 2009 winner of the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics

Column archive at Project Syndicate

;Other

Stocks Revisited: Siegel and Shiller Debate

Robert Shiller's Workshop in Behavioral Finance

Robert Shiller research, Yale Economic Review, Fall 2005

The compelling Real DJIA, 1924–now

*The 3 Fed Chair warnings, Real DJIA

Article on Robert J. Shiller (German language)

Robert Shiller's interview on the housing crisis with ''The Politic''

Video conversation on the economy with Shiller and Robert Wright on Bloggingheads.tv.

Link to podcast lecture at London School of Economics on Sub Prime Crisis

RSA Vision webcasts - Robert Shiller in conversation with Daniel Finkelstein on "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy"

Interview with italian magazine House living and business

Economic ratios maintained by Robert Shiller - P/E, Interest Rates, Divided Yields, Inflation, etc.

Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Financial economists Category:American economists Category:Yale University faculty Category:Yale School of Management faculty Category:Behavioral finance

de:Robert J. Shiller fr:Robert Shiller nl:Robert Shiller no:Robert Shiller ru:Шиллер, Роберт fi:Robert Shiller

name	Paul Krugman
school tradition	Keynesian economics
color	darkorange
birth date	February 28, 1953
birth place	Albany, New York
nationality	United States
institution	Princeton University,London School of Economics
field	International economics, Macroeconomics
alma mater	MIT (PhD)Yale University (B.A.)
influences	John Maynard KeynesJohn HicksJagdish BhagwatiRudi DornbuschJames TobinAvinash DixitJoseph Stiglitz
opposed	Freshwater economics Austrian school
influenced	Marc Melitz
contributions	International Trade TheoryNew Trade TheoryNew Economic Geography
awards	John Bates Clark Medal (1991)Príncipe de Asturias Prize (2004)Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (2008)
signature
repec prefix	e
repec id	pkr10 }}

Paul Robin Krugman (; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography. According to the Nobel Prize Committee, the prize was given for Krugman's work explaining the patterns of international trade and the geographic concentration of wealth, by examining the impact of economies of scale and of consumer preferences for diverse goods and services.

Krugman is known in academia for his work on international economics (including trade theory, economic geography, and international finance), liquidity traps and currency crises. According to the IDEAS/RePEc rankings, he is the 15th most widely cited economist in the world today.

, Krugman has authored 20 books and has published over 200 scholarly articles in professional journals and edited volumes. He has also written more than 750 columns dealing with current economic and political issues for ''The New York Times''. Krugman's ''International Economics: Theory and Policy'', co-authored with Maurice Obstfeld, is a standard college textbook on international economics. He also writes on political and economic topics for the general public, as well as on topics ranging from income distribution to international economics. Krugman considers himself a liberal, calling one of his books and his ''New York Times'' blog "The Conscience of a Liberal".

Personal life

Krugman is the son of David and Anita Krugman and the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Brest-Litovsk. He was born in Albany, NY and grew up in Nassau County, New York. He graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore. He is married to Robin Wells, his second wife, a yoga instructor and academic economist who has collaborated on textbooks with Krugman. Krugman reports that he is a distant relative of conservative journalist David Frum. He has described himself as a "Loner. Ordinarily shy. Shy with individuals."

According to Krugman, his interest in economics began with Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' novels, in which the social scientists of the future use "psychohistory" to attempt to save civilization. Since "psychohistory" in Asimov's sense of the word does not exist, Krugman turned to economics, which he considered the next best thing.

Academic career

Krugman earned his B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1974 and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977. While at MIT he was part of a small group of MIT students sent to work for the Central Bank of Portugal for three months in summer 1976, in the chaotic aftermath of the Carnation Revolution. From 1982 to 1983, he spent a year working at the Reagan White House as a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers. He taught at Yale University, MIT, UC Berkeley, the London School of Economics, and Stanford University before joining Princeton University in 2000 as professor of economics and international affairs. He is also currently a centenary professor at the London School of Economics, and a member of the Group of Thirty international economic body. He has been a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1979. Most recently, Dr. Krugman was President of the Eastern Economic Association.

Paul Krugman has written extensively on international economics, including international trade, economic geography, and international finance. The Research Papers in Economics project ranked him as the 14th most influential economist in the world as of March 2011 based on his academic contributions. Krugman's ''International Economics: Theory and Policy'', co-authored with Maurice Obstfeld, is a standard college textbook on international economics. Krugman also writes on economic topics for the general public, sometimes on international economic topics but also on income distribution and public policy.

The Nobel Prize Committee stated that Krugman's main contribution is his analysis of the impact of economies of scale, combined with the assumption that consumers appreciate diversity, on international trade and on the location of economic activity. The importance of spatial issues in economics has been enhanced by Krugman's ability to popularize this complicated theory with the help of easy-to-read books and state-of-the-art syntheses. "Krugman was beyond doubt the key player in 'placing geographical analysis squarely in the economic mainstream' ... and in conferring it the central role it now assumes."

In 1978, Krugman wrote ''The Theory of Interstellar Trade'', a tongue-in-cheek essay on computing interest rates on goods in transit near the speed of light. He says he wrote it to cheer himself up when he was "an oppressed assistant professor".

New trade theory

Prior to Krugman's work, trade theory (see David Ricardo and Hecksher-Ohlin model) emphasized trade based on the comparative advantage of countries with very different characteristics, such as a country with a high agricultural productivity trading agricultural products for industrial products from a country with a high industrial productivity. However, in the 20th century, an ever larger share of trade occurred between countries with very similar characteristics, which is difficult to explain by comparative advantage. Krugman's explanation of trade between similar countries was proposed in a 1979 paper in the ''Journal of International Economics'', and involves two key assumptions: that consumers prefer a diverse choice of brands, and that production favors economies of scale. Consumers' preference for diversity explains the survival of different versions of cars like Volvo and BMW. But because of economies of scale, it is not profitable to spread the production of Volvos all over the world; instead, it is concentrated in a few factories and therefore in a few countries (or maybe just one). This logic explains how each country may specialize in producing a few brands of any given type of product, instead of specializing in different types of products.

Many models of international trade now follow Krugman's lead, incorporating economies of scale in production and a preference for diversity in consumption. This way of modeling trade has come to be called New Trade Theory.

Krugman's theory also took into account transportation costs, a key feature in producing the "home market effect", which would later feature in his work on the new economic geography. The home market effect "states that, ceteris paribus, the country with the larger demand for a good shall, at equilibrium, produce a more than proportionate share of that good and be a net exporter of it." The home market effect was an unexpected result, and Krugman initially questioned it, but ultimately concluded that the mathematics of the model were correct.

When there are economies of scale in production, it is possible that countries may become 'locked in' to disadvantageous patterns of trade. Nonetheless, trade remains beneficial in general, even between similar countries, because it permits firms to save on costs by producing at a larger, more efficient scale, and because it increases the range of brands available and sharpens the competition between firms. Krugman has usually been supportive of free trade and globalization. He has also been critical of industrial policy, which New Trade Theory suggests might offer nations rent-seeking advantages if "strategic industries" can be identified, saying it's not clear that such identification can be done accurately enough to matter.

New economic geography

It took an interval of eleven years, but ultimately Krugman's work on New Trade Theory (NTT) converged to what is usually called the "new economic geography" (NEG), which Krugman began to develop in a seminal 1991 paper in the ''Journal of Political Economy''. In Krugman's own words, the passage from NTT to NEG was "obvious in retrospect; but it certainly took me a while to see it. ... The only good news was that nobody else picked up that $100 bill lying on the sidewalk in the interim." This would become Krugman's most-cited academic paper: by early 2009, it had 857 citations, more than double his second-ranked paper. Krugman called the paper "the love of my life in academic work."

The "home market effect" that Krugman discovered in NTT also features in NEG, which interprets agglomeration "as the outcome of the interaction of increasing returns, trade costs and factor price differences." If trade is largely shaped by economies of scale, as Krugman's trade theory argues, then those economic regions with most production will be more profitable and will therefore attract even more production. That is, NTT trade theory implies that instead of spreading out evenly around the world, production will tend to concentrate in a few countries, regions, or cities, which will become densely populated but will also have higher levels of income.

International finance

Krugman has also been influential in the field of international finance. As a graduate student, Krugman visited the Federal Reserve Board, where Stephen Salant and Dale Henderson were completing their discussion paper on speculative attacks in the gold market. Krugman adapted their model for the foreign exchange market, resulting in a 1979 paper on currency crises in the ''Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking'', which showed that fixed exchange rate regimes are unlikely to end smoothly: instead, they end in a sudden speculative attack. Krugman's paper is considered one of the main contributions to the 'first generation' of currency crisis models, and it is his second-most-cited paper (457 citations as of early 2009).

In response to the global financial crisis of 2008, Krugman proposed, in an informal "mimeo" style of publication, an "international finance multiplier", to help explain the unexpected speed with which the global crisis had occurred. He argued that when, ''"highly leveraged financial institutions [HLIs], which do a lot of cross-border investment [....] lose heavily in one market [...] they find themselves undercapitalized, and have to sell off assets across the board. This drives down prices, putting pressure on the balance sheets of other HLIs, and so on."'' Such a rapid contagion had hitherto been considered unlikely because of "decoupling" in a globalized economy. He first announced that he was working on such a model on his blog, on October 5, 2008. Within days of its appearance, it was being discussed on some popular economics-oriented blogs. The note was soon being cited in papers (draft and published) by other economists, even though it had not itself been through ordinary peer review processes.

Macroeconomics and fiscal policy

Krugman has done much to revive discussion of the liquidity trap as a topic in economics. He recommended aggressive fiscal policy to counter Japan's lost decade in the 1990s, arguing that the country was mired in a Keynesian liquidity trap. The debate he started at that time over liquidity traps and what policies best address them continues in the economics literature.

Krugman had argued in ''The Return of Depression Economics'' that Japan was in a liquidity trap in the late 1990s, since the central bank could not drop interest rates any lower to escape economic stagnation. The core of Krugman's policy proposal for addressing Japan's liquidity trap was inflation targeting, which, he argued "most nearly approaches the usual goal of modern stabilization policy, which is to provide adequate demand in a clean, unobtrusive way that does not distort the allocation of resources." The proposal appeared first in a web posting on his academic site. This mimeo-draft was soon cited, but was also misread by some as repeating his earlier advice that Japan's best hope was in "turning on the printing presses", as recommended by Milton Friedman, John Makin, and others.

Krugman has since drawn parallels between Japan's 'lost decade' and the late 2000s recession, arguing that expansionary fiscal policy is necessary as the major industrialized economies are mired in a liquidity trap. In response to economists who point out that the Japanese economy recovered despite not pursuing his policy prescriptions, Krugman maintains that it was an export-led boom that pulled Japan out of its economic slump in the late-90s, rather than reforms of the financial system.

Nobel Memorial Prize

Krugman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the sole recipient for 2008. This prize includes an award of about $1.4 million and was given to Krugman for his work associated with New Trade Theory and the New Economic Geography. In the words of the prize committee, "By having integrated economies of scale into explicit general equilibrium models, Paul Krugman has deepened our understanding of the determinants of trade and the location of economic activity."

Awards

1991, American Economic Association, John Bates Clark Medal. Since it was awarded to only one person, once every two years (prior to 2009), ''The Economist'' has described the Clark Medal as 'slightly harder to get than a Nobel prize'. 1992, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). 1995, Adam Smith Award of the National Association for Business Economics

1998, Doctor ''honoris causa'' in Economics awarded by Free University of Berlin Freie Universität Berlin in Germany

2000, H.C. Recktenwald Prize in Economics, awarded by University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.

2002, ''Editor and Publisher'', Columnist of the Year. 2004, Fundación Príncipe de Asturias (Spain), Prince of Asturias Awards in Social Sciences. 2004, Doctor of Humane Letters ''honoris causa'', Haverford College 2008, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (formally The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) for Krugman's contributions to New Trade Theory. He became the twelfth John Bates Clark Medal winner to be awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize.

Author

In the 1990s, besides academic books and textbooks, Krugman increasingly began writing books for a general audience on issues he considered important for public policy. In ''The Age of Diminished Expectations'' (1990), he wrote in particular about the increasing US income inequality in the "New Economy" of the 1990s. He attributes the rise in income inequality in part to changes in technology, but principally to a change in political atmosphere which he attributes to Movement Conservatives.

In September 2003, Krugman published a collection of his columns under the title, ''The Great Unraveling'', about the Bush administration's economic and foreign policies and the US economy in the early 2000s. His columns argued that the large deficits during that time were generated by the Bush administration as a result of decreasing taxes on the rich, increasing public spending, and fighting the Iraq war. Krugman wrote that these policies were unsustainable in the long run and would eventually generate a major economic crisis. The book was a best-seller.

In 2007, Krugman published ''The Conscience of a Liberal,'' whose title references Barry Goldwater's ''Conscience of a Conservative''. It details the history of wealth and income gaps in the United States in the 20th century. The book describes how the gap between rich and poor declined greatly in middle of the century, and then widened in the last two decades to levels higher even than in the 1920s. Most economists (including Krugman) had regarded the late-20th century divergence as resulting largely from changes in technology and trade. In ''Conscience'', Krugman argues that government policies played a much greater role than commonly thought both in reducing inequality in the 1930s through 1970s and in increasing it in the 1980s through the present, and criticizes the Bush administration for implementing policies that Krugman believes widened the gap between the rich and poor.

Krugman also argued that Republicans owed their electoral successes to their ability to exploit the race issue to win political dominance of the South. Krugman argues that Ronald Reagan had used the "Southern Strategy" to signal sympathy for racism without saying anything overtly racist, citing as an example Reagan's coining of the term "welfare queen".

In his book, Krugman proposed a "new New Deal", which included placing more emphasis on social and medical programs and less on national defense. Liberal journalist and author Michael Tomasky argued that in ''The Conscience of a Liberal'' Krugman is committed "to accurate history even when some fudging might be in order for the sake of political expediency." In a review for ''The New York Times'', Pulitzer prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy stated, "Like the rants of Rush Limbaugh or the films of Michael Moore, Krugman's shrill polemic may hearten the faithful, but it will do little to persuade the unconvinced".

In late 2008, Krugman published a substantial updating of an earlier work, entitled "The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008". In the book, he discusses the failure of the United States regulatory system to keep pace with a financial system increasingly out-of-control, and the causes of and possible ways to contain the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s.

Published works

Academic books (authored or coauthored)

''The Spatial Economy – Cities, Regions and International Trade'' (July 1999), with Masahisa Fujita and Anthony Venables. MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-06204-6

''The Self Organizing Economy'' (February 1996), ISBN 1-55786-698-8

''EMU and the Regions'' (December 1995), with Guillermo de la Dehesa. ISBN 1-56708-038-3

''Development, Geography, and Economic Theory (Ohlin Lectures)'' (September 1995), ISBN 0-262-11203-5

''Foreign Direct Investment in the United States (3rd Edition)'' (February 1995), with Edward M. Graham. ISBN 0-88132-204-0

''World Savings Shortage'' (September 1994), ISBN 0-88132-161-3

''What Do We Need to Know About the International Monetary System? (Essays in International Finance, No 190 July 1993)'' ISBN 0-88165-097-8

''Currencies and Crises'' (June 1992), ISBN 0-262-11165-9

''Geography and Trade (Gaston Eyskens Lecture Series)'' (August 1991), ISBN 0-262-11159-4

''The Risks Facing the World Economy'' (July 1991), with Guillermo de la Dehesa and Charles Taylor. ISBN 1-56708-073-1

''Has the Adjustment Process Worked? (Policy Analyses in International Economics, 34)'' (June 1991), ISBN 0-88132-116-8

''Rethinking International Trade'' (April 1990), ISBN 0-262-11148-9

''Trade Policy and Market Structure'' (March 1989), with Elhanan Helpman. ISBN 0-262-08182-2

''Exchange-Rate Instability (Lionel Robbins Lectures)'' (November 1988), ISBN 0-262-11140-3

''Adjustment in the World Economy'' (August 1987) ISBN 1-56708-023-5

''Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy'' (May 1985), with Elhanan Helpman. ISBN 0-262-08150-4

Academic books (edited or coedited)

''Currency Crises (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report)'' (September 2000), ISBN 0-226-45462-2

''Trade with Japan : Has the Door Opened Wider? (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report)'' (March 1995), ISBN 0-226-45459-2

''Empirical Studies of Strategic Trade Policy (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report)'' (April 1994), co-edited with Alasdair Smith. ISBN 0-226-45460-6

''Exchange Rate Targets and Currency Bands'' (October 1991), co-edited with Marcus Miller. ISBN 0-521-41533-0

''Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics'' (January 1986), ISBN 0-262-11112-8

Economics textbooks

''Economics: European Edition'' (Spring 2007), with Robin Wells and Kathryn Graddy. ISBN 0-7167-9956-1

''Macroeconomics'' (February 2006), with Robin Wells. ISBN 0-7167-6763-5

''Economics'', first edition (December 2005), with Robin Wells. ISBN 1-57259-150-1

''Economics'', second edition (2009), with Robin Wells. ISBN 0-7167-7158-6

''Microeconomics'' (March 2004), with Robin Wells. ISBN 0-7167-5997-7

''International Economics: Theory and Policy'', with Maurice Obstfeld. 7th Edition (2006), ISBN 0-321-29383-5; 1st Edition (1998), ISBN 0-673-52186-9

Books for a general audience

''The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008'' (December 2008) ISBN 0-393-07101-4

*An updated version of his previous work.

''The Conscience of a Liberal'' (October 2007) ISBN 0-393-06069-1

''The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century'' (September 2003) ISBN 0-393-05850-6

*A book of his ''The New York Times'' columns, many deal with the economic policies of the Bush administration or the economy in general.

''Fuzzy Math: The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan'' (May 4, 2001) ISBN 0-393-05062-9

''The Return of Depression Economics'' (May 1999) ISBN 0-393-04839-X

*Considers the long economic stagnation of Japan through the 1990s, the Asian financial crisis, and problems in Latin America.

* ''The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008'' (December 2008) ISBN 0-393-07101-4

''The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science'' (May 1998) ISBN 0-393-04638-9

*Essay collection, primarily from Krugman's writing for ''Slate''.

''Pop Internationalism'' (March 1996) ISBN 0-262-11210-8

*Essay collection, covering largely the same ground as ''Peddling Prosperity''.

''Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations'' (April 1995) ISBN 0-393-31292-5

*History of economic thought from the first rumblings of revolt against Keynesian economics to the present, for the layman.

''The Age of Diminished Expectations: U.S. Economic Policy in the 1990s'' (1990) ISBN 0-262-11156-X

* A "briefing book" on the major policy issues around the economy.

* Revised and Updated, January 1994, ISBN 0-262-61092-2

* Third Edition, August 1997, ISBN 0-262-11224-8

Selected academic articles

(1998) 'It's Baaack: Japan's Slump and the Return of the Liquidity Trap' ''Brookings Papers on Economic Activity'' 1998, pp. 137–205.

(1996) 'Are currency crises self-fulfilling?' ''NBER Macroeconomics Annual'' 11, pp. 345–78.

(1995)

(1991) 'Increasing returns and economic geography'. ''Journal of Political Economy'' 99, pp. 483–99.

(1991)

(1991) 'History versus expectations'. ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'' 106 (2), pp. 651–67.

(1981) 'Intra-industry specialization and the gains from trade'. ''Journal of Political Economy'' 89, pp. 959–73.

(1980) 'Scale economies, product differentiation, and the pattern of trade'. ''American Economic Review'' 70, pp. 950–59.

(1979) 'A model of balance-of-payments crises'. ''Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking'' 11, pp. 311–25.

(1979) 'Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade'. ''Journal of International Economics'' 9, pp. 469–79.

Commentator

Economist J. Peter Neary has noted that Krugman "has written on a wide range of topics, always combining one of the best prose styles in the profession with an ability to construct elegant, insightful and useful models." Neary added that "no discussion of his work could fail to mention his transition from Academic Superstar to Public Intellectual. Through his extensive writings, including a regular column for ''The New York Times'', monographs and textbooks at every level, and books on economics and current affairs for the general public ... he has probably done more than any other writer to explain economic principles to a wide audience." Krugman has been described as the most controversial economist in his generation and according to Michael Tomasky since 1992 he has moved "from being a center-left scholar to being a liberal polemicist." In 2010, ''The Economist'' described him as a left-leaning pundit.

From the mid-1990s onwards, Krugman wrote for ''Fortune'' (1997–99) and ''Slate'' (1996–99), and then for ''The Harvard Business Review'', ''Foreign Policy'', ''The Economist'', ''Harper's'', and ''Washington Monthly''. In this period Krugman critiqued various positions commonly taken on economic issues from across the political spectrum, from protectionism and opposition to the World Trade Organization on the left to supply side economics on the right.

During the 1992 presidential campaign Krugman praised Bill Clinton's economic plan in ''The New York Times'', and Clinton's campaign used some of Krugman's work on income inequality. At the time, it was considered likely that Clinton would offer him a position in the new administration, but allegedly Krugman's volatility and outspokenness caused Clinton to look elsewhere. Krugman later said that he was "temperamentally unsuited for that kind of role. You have to be very good at people skills, biting your tongue when people say silly things." In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Krugman added, "you have to be reasonably organized...I can move into a pristine office and within three days it will look like a grenade went off."

In 1999, near the height of the dot com boom, ''The New York Times'' approached Krugman to write a bi-weekly column on "the vagaries of business and economics in an age of prosperity." His first columns in 2000 addressed business and economic issues, but as the 2000 US presidential campaign progressed, Krugman increasingly focused on George W. Bush's policy proposals. According to Krugman, this was partly due to "the silence of the media - those 'liberal media' conservatives complain about...." Krugman accused Bush of repeatedly misrepresenting his proposals, and criticized the proposals themselves. After Bush's election, and his perseverance with his proposed tax cut in the midst of the slump (which Krugman argued would do little to help the economy but substantially raise the fiscal deficit), Krugman's columns grew angrier and more focused on the administration. As Alan Blinder put it in 2002, "There's been a kind of missionary quality to his writing since then ... He's trying to stop something now, using the power of the pen." Partly as a result, Krugman's twice-weekly column on the Op-Ed page of ''The New York Times'' has made him, according to Nicholas Confessore, "the most important political columnist in America... he is almost alone in analyzing the most important story in politics in recent years – the seamless melding of corporate, class, and political party interests at which the Bush administration excels." In an interview in late 2009, Krugman said his missionary zeal had changed in the post-Bush era and he described the Obama administration as "good guys but not as forceful as I'd like...When I argue with them in my column this is a serious discussion. We really are in effect speaking across the transom here." Krugman says he's more effective at driving change outside the administration than inside it, "now, I'm trying to make this progressive moment in American history a success. So that's where I'm pushing."

Krugman's columns have drawn criticism as well as praise. A 2003 article in ''The Economist'' questioned Krugman's "growing tendency to attribute all the world's ills to George Bush," citing critics who felt that "his relentless partisanship is getting in the way of his argument" and claiming errors of economic and political reasoning in his columns. Daniel Okrent, a former ''The New York Times'' ombudsman, in his farewell column, criticized Krugman for what he said was "the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults."

Krugman's New York Times blog is "The Conscience of a Liberal," devoted largely to economics and politics. Krugman has become a favorite of netroots liberals because of his robust, full-throated defense of liberal economic and social policies, and his aggressiveness in their defense, which is generally uncharacteristic of establishment media figures. Because of this implacability, Krugman has been (favorably) referred to by many online commentators and bloggers (such as Andrew Sullivan and John Cole) as "K-Thug."

East Asian growth

In a 1994 ''Foreign Affairs'' article, Paul Krugman argued that it was a myth that the economic successes of the East Asian 'tigers' constituted an economic miracle. He argued that their rise was fueled by mobilizing resources and that their growth rates would inevitably slow. His article helped popularize the argument made by Lawrence Lau and Alwyn Young, among others, that the growth of economies in East Asia was not the result of new and original economic models, but rather from high capital investment and increasing labor force participation, and that total factor productivity had not increased. Krugman argued that in the long term, only increasing total factor productivity can lead to sustained economic growth. Krugman's article was highly criticized in many Asian countries when it first appeared, and subsequent studies disputed some of Krugman's conclusions. However, it also stimulated a great deal of research, and may have caused the Singapore government to provide incentives for technological progress.

During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Krugman advocated currency controls as a way to mitigate the crisis. Writing in a ''Fortune'' magazine article, he suggested exchange controls as "a solution so unfashionable, so stigmatized, that hardly anyone has dared suggest it." Malaysia was the only country that adopted such controls, and although the Malaysian government credited its rapid economic recovery on currency controls, the relationship is disputed. Krugman later stated that the controls might not have been necessary at the time they were applied, but that nevertheless "Malaysia has proved a point—namely, that controlling capital in a crisis is at least feasible." Krugman more recently pointed out that emergency capital controls have even been endorsed by the IMF, and are no longer considered radical policy.

U.S. economic policies

In the early 2000s, Krugman repeatedly criticized the Bush tax cuts, both before and after they were enacted. Krugman argued that the tax cuts enlarged the budget deficit without improving the economy, and that they enriched the wealthy – worsening income distribution in the US. Krugman advocated lower interest rates (to promote spending on housing and other durable goods), and increased government spending on infrastructure, military, and unemployment benefits, arguing that these policies would have a larger stimulus effect, and unlike permanent tax cuts, would only temporarily increase the budget deficit.

In August 2005, after Alan Greenspan expressed concern over housing markets, Krugman criticized Greenspan's earlier reluctance to regulate the mortgage and related financial markets, arguing that "[he's] like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then – after the horse is gone – delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up."

Krugman has repeatedly expressed his view that Greenspan and Phil Gramm are the two individuals most responsible for causing the subprime crisis. Krugman points to Greenspan and Gramm for the key roles they played in keeping derivatives, financial markets, and investment banks unregulated, and to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Great Depression era safeguards that prevented commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies from merging.

Krugman has also been critical of some of the Obama administration's economic policies. He has criticized the Obama stimulus plan as being too small and inadequate given the size of the economy and the banking rescue plan as misdirected; Krugman wrote in ''The New York Times'': "an overwhelming majority [of the American public] believes that the government is spending too much to help large financial institutions. This suggests that the administration's money-for-nothing financial policy will eventually deplete its political capital." In particular, he considered the Obama administration's actions to prop up the US financial system in 2009 to be impractical and unduly favorable to Wall Street bankers. In anticipation of President Obama's Job Summit in December 2009, Krugman said in a Fresh Dialogues interview, "This jobs summit can't be an empty exercise…he can't come out with a proposal for $10 or $20 Billion of stuff because people will view that as a joke. There has to be a significant job proposal…I have in mind something like $300 Billion."

Krugman has recently criticized China's exchange rate policy, which he believes to be a significant drag on global economic recovery from the Late-2000s recession, and he has advocated a "surcharge" on Chinese imports to the US in response. Jeremy Warner of ''The Daily Telegraph'' accused Krugman of advocating a return to self-destructive protectionism.

In April 2010, as the Senate began considering new financial regulations, Krugman argued that the regulations should not only regulate financial innovation, but also tax financial-industry profits and remuneration. He cited a paper by Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny released the previous week, which concludes that most innovation was in fact about "providing investors with false substitutes for [traditional] assets like bank deposits," and once investors realize the sheer number of securities that are unsafe a "flight to safety" occurs which necessarily leads to "financial fragility."

In his June 28, 2010 column in ''The New York Times'', in light of the recent G-20 Toronto Summit, Krugman criticized world leaders for agreeing to halve deficits by 2013. Krugman claimed that these efforts could lead the global economy into the early stages of a "third depression" and leave "millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs." He advocated instead the continued stimulus of economies to foster greater growth.

Economic views

Krugman identifies as a Keynesian and a saltwater economist, and he has criticized the freshwater school on macroeconomics. Though he applies New Keynesian theory in some of his work, he has also criticized it for lacking predictive power and for hewing to ideas like the Efficient Markets Hypothesis and Rational Expectations.

In the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis he has remarked that he is "gravitating towards a Keynes-Fisher-Minsky view of macroeconomics." Post-Keynesian observers cite commonalities between Krugman's views and those of the Post-Keynesian school. In recent academic work, he has collaborated with Gauti Eggertsson on a New Keynesian model of debt-overhang and debt-driven slumps. This theory argues that the "paradox of toil", together with the paradox of flexibility, can exacerbate a liquidity trap, reducing demand and employment.

Political views

Krugman describes himself as liberal, and has explained that he views the term "liberal" in the American context to mean "more or less what social democratic means in Europe." In a 2009 ''Newsweek'' article, Evan Thomas described Krugman as having "all the credentials of a ranking member of the East coast liberal establishment" but also as someone who is anti-establishment, a "scourge of the Bush administration," and a critic of the Obama administration. In 1996, ''Newsweek'' [[Michael Hirsh (journalist)|Michael Hirsh ]] remarked "Say this for Krugman: though an unabashed liberal ... he's ideologically colorblind. He savages the supply-siders of the Reagan-Bush era with the same glee as he does the 'strategic traders' of the Clinton administration."

Krugman has advocated free markets in contexts where they are often viewed as controversial. He has written against rent control in favor of supply and demand, likened the opposition against free trade and globalization to the opposition against evolution via natural selection, opposed farm subsidies, argued that "sweatshops" are preferable to unemployment, dismissed the case for 'living wages', argued against mandates, subsidies, and tax breaks for ethanol, questioned NASA's manned space flights, and has written against U.S. zoning laws and European labor market regulation.

Free trade

Krugman's views on free trade have provoked considerable ire from the anti-globalism movement. He once famously quipped that, "If there were an Economist's Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations 'I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage' and 'I advocate Free Trade'."

Although Krugman argues in the same article that, given the findings of New Trade Theory, : ... free trade is not passé, but it is an idea that has irretrievably lost its innocence. Its status has shifted from optimum to reasonable rule of thumb...it can never again be asserted as the policy that economic theory tells us is always right.

Krugman nevertheless declares in favor of free trade given the enormous political costs of actively engaging in strategic trade policy (i.e. rent-seeking) and because there is no clear method for a government to discover which industries will ultimately yield positive returns. Furthermore, Krugman expressed in that article that the phenomena of increasing returns (of which strategic trade policy depends) by no means disproves the underlying truth behind comparative advantage.

U.S. race relations

Krugman has repeatedly criticized the Republican Party leadership for what he sees as a strategic (but largely tacit) reliance on racial divisions. In his ''Conscience of a Liberal'', he wrote

Krugman also once wrote in defense of Glenn Loury, a conservative black economist, that Loury, in defiance of many African-American political leaders, had clearly seen and articulated that "the problems facing African-Americans had changed. The biggest barrier to progress was no longer active racism of whites but internal social problems of the black community."

On working in the Reagan Administration

Krugman worked for Martin Feldstein when the latter was appointed chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. He later wrote in an autobiographical essay, "It was, in a way, strange for me to be part of the Reagan Administration. I was then and still am an unabashed defender of the welfare state, which I regard as the most decent social arrangement yet devised." Krugman found the time "thrilling, then disillusioning". He did not fit into the Washington political environment, and was not tempted to stay on.

On Gordon Brown vs David Cameron

Krugman has praised Gordon Brown, the former British Prime Minister, whom he described as "more impressive than any US politician" after a three-hour conversation with him. Krugman asserted that Brown "defined the character of the worldwide financial rescue effort" and urged British voters not to support the opposition Conservative Party in the 2010 General Election, arguing their Party Leader David Cameron "has had little to offer other than to raise the red flag of fiscal panic."

Controversies

Enron

In early 1999, Krugman served on an advisory panel (including Larry Lindsey and Robert Zoellick) that offered Enron executives briefings on economic and political issues. He resigned from the panel in the fall of 1999 to comply with ''The New York Times'' rules regarding conflicts of interest, when he accepted the ''Times'' offer to become an op-ed columnist. Krugman later stated that he was paid $37,500 (not $50,000 as often reported - his early resignation cost him part of his fee), and that, for consulting that required him to spend four days in Houston, the fee was "rather low compared with my usual rates", which were around $20,000 for a one-hour speech. He also stated that the advisory panel "had no function that I was aware of", and that he later interpreted his role as being "just another brick in the wall" Enron used to build an image.

When the story of Enron's corporate scandals broke two years later, Krugman was accused of unethical journalism, specifically of having a conflict of interest. Some of his critics claimed that "The Ascent of E-man," an article Krugman wrote for Fortune magazine about the rise of the market as illustrated by Enron's energy trading, was biased by Krugman's earlier consulting work for them. Krugman later argued that "The Ascent of E-Man" was in character, writing "I have always been a free-market Keynesian: I like free markets, but I want some government supervision to correct market failures and ensure stability." Krugman noted his previous relationship with Enron in that article and in other articles he wrote on the company. Krugman was one of the first to argue that deregulation of the California energy market had led to market manipulation by energy companies.

References in popular culture

Krugman appears as himself in a cameo in the 2010 comedy film ''Get Him to the Greek''.

Krugman is the subject of the satirical folk song "The Krugman Blues" from Loudon Wainwright III's 2010 album ''10 Songs For The New Depression''.^video

See also

Capitol Hill Baby-Sitting Co-op, popularized in Krugman's book, ''Peddling Prosperity''

List of economists

List of Jewish Nobel laureates

List of newspaper columnists

References

External links

Paul Krugman uFollow page with an index of his columns and posts

Profile and column archive at ''The New York Times''

* The Conscience of a Liberal blog

KrugmanOnline.com features books by Paul Krugman, a custom search engine, and aggregated content from the web.

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive contains nearly all his pre-Times Select articles

Paul Krugman (MIT) archives of his Slate and Fortune columns plus other writings 1996-2000

The Increasing Returns Revolution in Trade and Geography 2008 lecture at NobelPrize.org

Profile and Papers at Research Papers in Economics/RePEc

Publications at the National Bureau of Economic Research

Video: Open Mind Interview, 2002: Part One, 2002,Part Two

Audio: The New Class War In America featuring Amy Goodman, Paul Krugman, Greg Palast and Randi Rhodes recorded on June 13, 2006 at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, mp3 format, Video: alternate

Video: Paul Krugman speaks at the World Affairs Council - September 2007

Video: The Conscience of a Liberal (November 3, 2007) - lecture from Mr. Krugman's 2007 book tour.

Video of debate/discussion with Paul Krugman and Mario Cuomo on Bloggingheads.tv

How Paul Krugman Found Politics, Larissa MacFarquhar, ''The New Yorker'', March 1, 2010

Paul Krugman's video interview on Big Think

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