Krugman's True Expertise

Paul Krugman, up until about a decade ago, was a brilliant international trade economist. His work deserves the awards that it has garnered, though arguably his Nobel Prize should have been a joint prize between him and any of a group of about four other prominent economists. However, Paul Krugman is not and never has been an expert in macroeconomics, despite his constant ranting on the subject-- but don't take it from me, I'm just a graduate student. Take it from Robert Barro:

In an interview with Robert Barro...

Do you read Paul Krugman's blog?

Just when he writes nasty individual comments that people forward.

Oh, well he wrote a series of posts saying he thought the World War II spending evidence was not good, for a variety of reasons, but I guess...

He said elsewhere that it was good and that it was what got us out of the depression. He just says whatever is convenient for his political argument. He doesn't behave like an economist. And the guy has never done any work in Keynesian macroeconomics, which I actually did. He has never even done any work on that. His work is in trade stuff. He did excellent work, but it has nothing to do with what he's writing about.