bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Ben Naparstek

Few people were surprised when Paul Krugman  won the Nobel Prize for Economics last month. In 1991  he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal for an American economist under 40.  His work on economic geography and international trade - explored across 15 books and hundreds of journal articles - remains hugely influential.
'What are the effects of free trade and globalisation? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanisation? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions,' the Swedish academy said in its citation.
Of other Nobel economists, only Joseph Stiglitz  has a comparable public profile. Krugman began his twice-weekly New York Times column in  1999,  becoming one of the few pundits in the mainstream press unflinchingly to attack President George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. As the Times, Washington Post, New Yorker and New Republic fell obediently in line with the Bush administration, Krugman's columns were heretical.
'I was largely alone on the major op-ed pages,' says the  55-year-old Princeton professor. 'We look back now at 2002 and say, 'Nothing really bad happened to people. We did not have a new era of McCarthyism.' But that was very far from clear at the time. It was pretty frightening.'
In the fevered climate of post-September 11 America, his outspokenness attracted death threats. But Krugman, a self-described pussycat and accustomed to the sedate groves of Ivy League academe, never set out to fight political battles. 'It has been a much less easy life than I expected to be leading at this point. I should be sitting around in well-stuffed armchairs reflecting upon my life's research work.' When Krugman was approached by the Times to write a column  he wrongly presumed it wouldn't be too time-consuming. The main burden would be financial - the newspaper's conflict-of-interest rules prohibited him from giving corporate talks, for which he commanded up to US$50,000.
With the American political scene calm and the economy booming, Krugman expected to write about business deals, the internet and developing world financial crises. But the 2000 presidential election politicised him. 'A funny thing was happening. The candidate of one major party was being blatantly dishonest in what he said - at that point about economics - and no one was calling him on it.'
Krugman argues that the media gives a soft ride to mendacious politicians because journalists are trained to consider two sides of any issue. 'If Bush said that the world was flat, the headline on the news analysis would read 'Shape of Earth: Views Differ',' he quipped in 2000.
In The Great Unravelling: Losing Our Way in the New Century (2003), Krugman  explained why many people failed to grasp the radicalism of the Bush agenda: 'People who have been accustomed to stability can't bring themselves to believe what is happening when faced with a revolutionary power, and are therefore ineffective in opposing it.'
Whereas most Times columnists are career reporters, Krugman's academic background means he was never socialised to follow the dominant media line. Other political journalists chase contacts at Washington dinner parties, but Krugman maintains his independence by leading the relatively secluded life of a university professor in New Jersey.
Though sometimes criticised for not doing much original research, Krugman doesn't see any reason to interview executives or government officials. 'I'm not trying to do the beat reporter style. That's not my brief. Overwhelmingly, what I'm writing about is policy issues, and some carefully neutral words are not going to help me sort it out.'
Even Krugman's admirers sometimes flinch at his savagery. 'He steps over the top,' says Stiglitz, a close acquaintance of Krugman. 'He doesn't titrate his tone to the magnitude of the outrage. I think he's been too harsh on Obama.'
Krugman is concerned about president-elect Barack Obama's conciliatory style. 'If he really thinks that he can reach across the  aisle and hammer out solutions that are going to get past partisanship, then he's going to get nothing done,'  the economist says.
Krugman's most recent book, The Conscience of a Liberal, makes the case for universal health insurance and surveys - in typically punchy prose - the history of American political economy. Krugman reveals how the bipartisan consensus and economic parity of the  post-second world war era was eroded by the emergence of 'movement conservatives' - an unholy alliance of political, business and religious forces that evolved into  Bush neoconservatives.
Conscience  shows the US is unique among advanced countries in failing to guarantee basic health care to its citizens. The dependence on private insurance means 15  per cent of Americans lack health cover. Opponents of a single-payer system suggest it would cost the taxpayer too much, but Krugman argues it would be cheaper than the status quo. Private insurers have little incentive to pay for preventative care that minimises long-term costs; they are also more bureaucratic than state health programmes, so incur greater administrative expenses.
Krugman is less optimistic about health reform now than when the book came out in the US last October. 'The odds of getting all  the way to an effectively universal system are well under 50/50 now.  A lot of people think that by definition any system which has  the government playing a key role is going to be terrible. John McCain talks about how terrible everybody else's health care system is compared to the US, in terms that would have residents of France or Germany laughing.'
As a teenager on Long Island,  Krugman  fantasised about becoming a 'psychohistorian' - one of the prophetic mathematicians of science-fiction author Isaac Asimov's  Foundation trilogy. He decided at college that economics was the next best thing to Asimov's fictional science.
After gaining an undergraduate degree at Yale, Krugman went to  the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for his PhD, where he consolidated a refreshingly non-ideological approach to economics. Satisfying neither hardline free marketeers nor dogmatic interventionists, Krugman styles himself as 'free-market Keynesian'. 'In practice, it is a common position. You believe in government intervention but also have a strong appreciation for the power of markets and where you can rely on the market.'
In 1979 he formulated the first model to explain currency crises. But Krugman remains best known among academic economists as  a founder of the so-called New Trade Theory. In the classical  model of 'comparative advantage', a country's relative share of natural resources was alone seen to dictate the success of their industries in the world market.
Krugman showed specialisation and technological sophistication are sometimes enough to account for market domination.
This influential research  led to a revelatory one-year stint as a member of US president Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers in 1982. 'Key decisions were being made on the basis of rather obscure 'I talked to a businessman who told me' sort of reasoning.' Krugman discovered the reluctance of government officials to amend policies. 'Most things stay the way they are unless there's very strong pressure to change.' He happily returned to scholarship the following year. 'As a subordinate I was okay, but in terms of being a government official at a more senior level my fundamental lack of tact would become a  serious problem.'
By 1984, although a full professor at MIT, he was dissatisfied. 'I had a good job and a good income, and from the point of view of what the vast majority of the world have I was doing fine. But I wasn't at the top of the heap in terms of the academic pecking order. My reference group were the people who were really the star economists.'
Krugman's star rose during Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, when his work on income inequality was used by Clinton's advisers to help demolish Republican claims that the widening wage gap was a myth. Many speculated that Clinton would appoint Krugman as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers.
When he was passed over in favour of Berkeley economist Laura Tyson, Krugman was bitter. He dismissed Tyson as 'a third-rate interpreter of other people's work' and denounced two of Clinton's other appointees as 'pop internationalists' who 'repeat silly cliches but imagine themselves to be sophisticated'. Krugman now downplays his ambitions to be part of Clinton's team. 'I'd have liked the analytical parts of the job but I'm a terrible manager and I'm not tactful, so I don't think I belong in that kind of position.' He speculates that he alienated Clinton during their first - and last - meeting in 1992. 'I was dismissive of concerns about industrialisation, which were a favourite theme of his. If that was an audition, I failed.' Stiglitz says 'his firebrand [temperament] which serves him well, in some ways, in journalism, may not be that great  in the political context'.
Stiglitz feels that Krugman underplayed the achievement of the East Asian economies before the 1997 financial meltdown. 'He suggested that there was no miracle - that they had just saved a lot,' Stiglitz says. 'My response was that it was a miracle that they had saved that much. No other countries had succeeded in saving at that rate and investing that level of savings well.'
As Krugman predicted, the Asian boom economies collapsed and  Bush's rationales for invading Iraq are now widely recognised as canards. Yet rather than relaxing with the satisfaction of a vindicated dissenter, Krugman is hard at work on his academic career, revising an introductory economics textbook co-written by his wife, Robin Wells, who's also an economist. It is a lifestyle to which he says he could imagine fully returning.
But Krugman's reference group is now not just star economists but also political columnists. Some see him as the most influential political commentator in the US. He will want to keep it that way. Abandoning the spotlight for the ivory tower seems unlikely.
Writer's notes
Name: Paul Krugman
Age: 55
Genre: political commentary
Latest book: The Conscience of a Liberal (W.W. Norton)
Current project: revising an economics textbook co-written with his wife
Home: New Jersey
Family: married to second wife, economist Robin Wells
Other books include: Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations (1995), Pop Internationalism (1996), The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science (1998), The Return of Depression Economics (1999), Fuzzy Math: The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan (2001), The Great Unravelling: Losing Our Way in the New Century (2003)
Other jobs: professor at Princeton University; member of Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers; newspaper columnist
What the papers say: 'If you want an American liberal economist who will knock the right-wingers down so they stay down, then turn to Paul Krugman' - Independent on Sunday



Prophet  & loss