Economist Paul Krugman's Writings

choi

(1) Paul Krugman, Crash of the Bumblebee; Will the Euro really be saved?  New York Times, July 30, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/3 ... -the-bumblebee.html

My comment:
(a) bumblebee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee
(section 4 Misconceptions: 4.1 Flight; section 7 Etymology)
(b) Deciphering the Mystery of Bee Flight. Caltech, Nov 29, 2005
http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/12772
(Prof Michael Dickinson; "Being relatively large insects, bees would be expected to beat their wings rather slowly, and to sweep them across the same wide arc as other flying bugs (whose wings cover nearly half a circle). They do neither. Their wings beat over a short arc of about 90 degrees, but ridiculously fast, at around 230 beats per second. Fruit flies, in comparison, are 80 times smaller than honeybees, but flap their wings only 200 times a second")

, which alluded to
Altshuler DL et al, Short-Amplitude High-Frequency Wing Strokes Determine the Aerodynamics of Honeybee Flight. Proc Nat Acad Sci, 102: 18213-18218
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/ ... e-8d42-d701bd89ad34
(honey bee as an experimental tool, not bumblebee, which had been solved by Charles P Ellington of University of Cambridge; "The results from honeybees are consistent with a study of bumblebees that showed increases in flight speed (which should raise parasite drag) require little increase in metabolic rate ([reference] 39)")
(c) Euro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro
(The euro was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999)
(d) The column says, "Meanwhile, the German economy, which had been languishing, perked up thanks to rapidly rising exports to those bubble economies in the South."

To me, it is a novel way to explain Germany's economy. (Germany's GDP growth rates for the past two decades are worse than those of US and Taiwan.) However, I am not convinced the data bear out the bove statement.

* bear out (vt): "CONFIRM, SUBSTANTIATE"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bear%20out
* Germany; World Development Indicators and Global Development Finance. World Bank Databank, undated.
http://databank.worldbank.org/Da ... p;IsPopular=country
(GDP growth (annual %): 1991 (5.1%), 1992 (1.9%), 1993 (-1.0%), 1994 (2.5%) 1995 (1.7%), 1996 (0.8%), 1997 (1.7%), 1998 (1.9%), 1999 (1.9%), 2000 (3.1%), 2001 (1.5%), 2002 (0.0%), 2003 (-0.4%), 2004 (1.2%), 2005 (0.7%), 2006 (3.7%), 2007 (3.3%), 2008 (1.1%), 2009 (-5.1%), 2010 (3.7%))

Move the blue bars in the vertical (to the right of the table) and horizontal (underneath the table) directions, to locate "GDP growth (annual %)" (in the left column of the table).
(e) The essay next says, "What could turn this dangerous situation around? The answer is fairly clear: policy makers would have to (a) * * * (b) give Europe’s debtors the same kind of opportunity to export their way out of trouble that Germany received during the good years — that is, create a boom in Germany that mirrors the boom in southern Europe between 1999 and 2007. (And yes, that would mean a temporary rise in German inflation.)"

I am unsure what the prescription means: possibly a booming Germany will import more from southern Europe.


(2) In Chronological order.
(a) Paul Krugman, Estonian Rhapsody. New York Times, June 6, 2012 (blog).
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/estonian-rhapsdoy/
(b) Brendan Greeley, Krugmenistan vs Estonia. The Nobel laureate says stimulus and currency devaluation are the best way to survive a crisis. Estonia chose austerity. Why their rancorous, and often hilarious, war of words matters. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, July 23, 2012 (cover story).
http://www.businessweek.com/arti ... stan-vs-dot-estonia

My comment: Unfortunately there are no details in economics in these two about the merits of austerity v stimulus. Professor Krugman is a Keynesian.
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