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"If there is one single area of economics in which path dependence is unmistakable, it is in economic geography – the location of production in space."
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Paul KrugmanSo why did spatial issues remain a blind spot for the economic profess — Paul Krugman
"So why did spatial issues remain a blind spot for the economic profession? It was not a historical accident: there was something about spatial economics that made it inherently unfriendly terrain for the kind of modeling mainstream economists know how to do. That something was, as you might well guess, the problem of in the face of increasing returns, a problem that is even more acute in than in . In development the crucial role that high assigned to increasing returns was a hypothesis crucial to that doctrine, but not necessarily crucial to understanding development in general. One could do meaningful theorizing about developing countries, albeit not in the grand tradition, without sacrificing the convenient assumptions of constant returns and perfect competition. In spatial economics, however, you really cannot get started at all without finding a way to deal with scale economies and oligopolistic firms."
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Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman
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Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He was a columnist for The New York Times from 2000 to 2024. In 2008, Krugman was the sole winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to new trade theory and new economic geography. The Prize Committee cited Krugma
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"In the course of describing my formative moment in 1978, I have already implicitly given my four basic rules for research. Let me now state them explicitly, then explain. Here are the rules:1. Listen to the Gentiles 2. Question the question 3. Dare to be silly 4. Simplify, simplify"
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Paul KrugmanQuote
"If you want a simple model for predicting the unemployment rate in the United States over the next few years, here it is: It will be what Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a random error reflecting the fact that he is not quite God."
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Paul KrugmanQuote
"But the honest truth is that what drives me as an economist is that economics is fun. I think I understand why so many people think that economics is a boring subject, but they are wrong. On the contrary, there is hardly anything I know that is as exciting as finding that the great events that move history, the forces that determine the destiny of empires and the fate of kings, can sometimes be explained, predicted, or even controlled by a few symbols on a printed page. We all want power, we all want success, but the ultimate reward is the simple joy of understanding."
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Paul KrugmanQuote
"It is a bit funny, but also quite sad: Those who preach the doctrine of global glut are tilting at windmills, when there are some real monsters out there that need slaying."
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Paul KrugmanQuote
"If there were an Economists Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage and I advocate Free Trade"
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Paul Krugman