Bush critic wins 2008 Nobel for economics

By Anna Ringstrom, Sven Nordenstam and Jon Hurdle

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - U.S. economist Paul Krugman, a fierce critic of the Bush administration for policies that he argues led to the current financial crisis, won the 2008 Nobel prize for economics on Monday.

The Nobel committee said the award was for Krugman's work that helps explain why some countries dominate international trade, starting with research published nearly 30 years ago.

While the research for which he won the prize was not obviously partisan, Krugman is best known as the author of columns and a blog called "The Conscience of a Liberal" for the New York Times. He has long been tipped as a likely winner.

A professor at Princeton University, the 55-year-old Krugman argues that President George W. Bush's zeal for deregulation and loose fiscal policies helped spark the current banking meltdown.

He said news of the prize took him by surprise. "I took the call stark naked as I was about to step into the shower," he told a news conference at Princeton on Monday afternoon.

Speaking by telephone to a news conference earlier, Krugman offered a snap analysis on the turbulent times.

"We are now witnessing a crisis that is as severe as the crisis that hit Asia in the 90s. This crisis bears some resemblance to the Great Depression."

Praising world leaders' efforts to staunch the financial bleeding, particularly in Europe, he added: "I'm slightly less terrified today than I was on Friday."

World policy makers met at the weekend, after a black week on financial markets, to agree on radical measures to rescue banks, revive liquidity and avert a global recession.

It was the second year in a row that a major Nobel prize was awarded to an American known for his strong criticism of Bush -- last year's peace prize went to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for his work on climate change.

Asked at the Princeton news conference if he saw a trend of Nobels going to people who were anti-Bush, Krugman said "A lot of intellectuals are anti-Bush."

The prize committee dismissed any suggestion its choice was influenced by the current crisis or political considerations.

"I don't think the committee has ever taken a political stance," committee secretary Peter Englund told Reuters. "The real, dramatic crisis is an event of the last month or so, which is in practice after the committee took its decision."

COMMON SENSE VOICE

Krugman's latest column in the New York Times, published on Monday, praised Britain for thinking clearly and acting quickly to address the crisis, unlike the United States. He mused: Did British leader Gordon Brown just save world markets?