Thursday, October 11, 2018

Key Snippets From Paul Krugman's Interview With Tyler Cowen



Recently, Tyler Cowen sat down to interview Paul Krugman.  Here are actual key snippets from Krugman replies to Cowen questions:

COWEN: The New York Times recently referred to a new movement. They called it “hipster antitrust.” The notion, for instance, that maybe Amazon was bad for a more general commercial ecosystem of publishing and retail. Do you have an opinion on hipster antitrust?

KRUGMAN: [sighs] We need something. I haven’t actually looked at the hipster antitrust...
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COWEN: Let me throw out a number of ways we might do that, and tell me what you think. Universal basic income.

KRUGMAN: I’m still debating with myself over UBI...
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COWEN: Ending the war on drugs and moving to either decriminalization or legalization. Would it help our cities or hurt them?

KRUGMAN: It probably would help, but I’ve put in no thought at all on drugs. I’ve just done no homework.
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COWEN: You have a paper with Venables from the mid ’90s in the QJE. I think it’s called “Globalization and the Inequality of Nations.” It’s really a paper about history. For some reason, it’s become somewhat neglected.

The notion that, as transportation costs fall very low, that nations on the periphery come back at the expense of the nations in center — do you think that’s what’s happening to the world today?

KRUGMAN: I think we don’t really know...
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COWEN: Henry George’s single land tax — would you consider it as a means of both encouraging building and reducing inequality?

KRUGMAN: I just haven’t done my homework on that.
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COWEN: Star Trek versus Star Wars. Which do you find more interesting?

KRUGMAN: Oh, boy. Good thing about Star Trek is that there were lots of shows and not three absolutely horrible movies that I refuse to watch. I don’t know.
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COWEN: Returning to nonfiction, is there an economically viable role for humans in space?

KRUGMAN: That’s unclear.
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COWEN: You mentioned having had, around 1987, a kind of temporary dry spell in your career. How is it you pulled yourself out of that?

KRUGMAN: No idea.

-RW 

3 comments:

  1. In https://luigilamour.livejournal.com/ I have poster my comment!

    Is it now The Google account visualized for me as the only possibility to comment here at the EPJ, dear EPJ, really the only offered possibility?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Krugman is either being terribly evasive here or he has had a lobotomy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Krugman is not an economist. He is a political dork hoping to get adopted by real gangsters. He wants to be the emperor's taylor, and you don't need to know how to sew to do it.

    ReplyDelete