Face value

摘要

"Give me a one-handed economist," demanded a frustrated American president. "All my economists say, 'on the one hand...on the other'". From a mono-manual perspective, at least, Harry Truman would have loved Paul Krugman, an economist who rarely hesitates to take a bold position- even when the subject is himself. In recounting the transformation of his twice-weekly New York Times column from a genial discussion of the "New Economy" into a widely read broadside against the Bush administration, the Princeton professor recently described himself as "a lonely voice of truth in a sea of corruption." What is beyond dispute is that Mr Krugman is the finest economist to become a media superstar- at least since Milton Friedman or, earlier, John Maynard Keynes turned to journalism. Mr Krugman's work on currency crises and international trade is widely admired by other economists. He holds the John Bates Clark medal in economics, which is slightly harder to get than a Nobel prize. As for popularity, his new book, "The Great Unrav-elling"-his eighth aimed at a broad, non-academic readership-has spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.