Author: Paul Krugman

Three and a half years ago, an open letter that more than 3,600 economists eventually signed declared that “climate change is a serious problem calling for immediate national action.” The…

In 1990 Congress passed an amendment to the Clean Air Act of 1970, among other things taking action against acid rain, urban smog and ozone.The legislation was highly successful, greatly…

It has been a good week on the inflation front. First we had a flat month for the Consumer Price Index — zero inflation in July. Then we saw an…

This is not the end of inflation. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor…

Two weeks ago, I wrote a newsletter that I foolishly considered somewhat anodyne, not likely to get much reaction. It seemed probable that the initial estimate for G.D.P. growth in…

They really did it. The Inflation Reduction Act, which is mainly a climate change bill with a side helping of health reform, passed the Senate on Sunday; by all accounts…

Inflation is coming down — fast.Gas prices, defying predictions of a nightmare summer for motorists, are leading the parade:Less pain at the pump.Gasbuddy.comThe majority of gas stations in the United…

Kyrsten Sinema willing, Democrats appear to be on the verge of passing the Inflation Reduction Act — a bill that probably would, indeed, reduce inflation but is mainly a desperately…

The other day, my CUNY and Stone Center colleague Branko Milanovic suggested that it would be interesting to “compare Napoleon’s continental blockade against Great Britain to the current sanctions against…

After all the false starts and dashed hopes of the past two years, I’m reluctant to count my chickens before they’ve actually been signed in the Oval Office. Still, it…

At one level, the wages and salaries employers pay their workers are just another price — in this case, the price you pay for the use of someone’s time and…

The U.S. economy is not currently in a recession. No, two quarters of negative growth aren’t, whatever you may have heard, the “official” or “technical” definition of a recession; that…

There’s a pretty good chance the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces the numbers on gross domestic product and other macroeconomic data, will declare on Thursday, preliminarily, that real G.D.P.…

Desensitization is an amazing thing. At this point most political observers simply accept it as a fact of life that an overwhelming majority of Republicans accept the Big Lie that…

As president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi saved the euro. In my estimation, this makes him history’s greatest central banker, outranking even the former Fed chairs Paul Volcker,…

Until just the other day, Republicans and conservative media loved, just loved talking about the price of gasoline. Indeed, “Remember how cheap gas used to be under Trump?” became a…

Sean DongSean DongIn early 2021 there was an intense debate among economists about the likely consequences of the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion package enacted by a new Democratic…

Macroeconomic policy in the United States has been subject to two great errors over the past half-century. The odds are that you’ve only heard about the first, the way the…

Texas is often hot, but not like this: Current forecasts have the temperature in Dallas hitting 109 degrees Tuesday, with highs in triple digits well into next week.Britain, on the…

In the summer of 2001, my wife and I took a cycling tour in Burgundy. We loved the scenery, the wine, the food (except for the andouillette — yuck) —…

Another month, another bad consumer price report. Media headlines screamed about 9.1 percent inflation, and the numbers for June were, in fact, bad no matter how you cut them.Financial markets,…

There’s an old story about Charles Darwin, which may or may not be true but seems appropriate to our current economic moment. According to the tale, two boys glued together…

When the Federal Reserve speaks, it speaks in Fedspeak. A pithy turn of phrase or a striking metaphor can all too easily turn into a headline, causing big market moves…

One of the sad paradoxes of politics is that few economic indicators matter more for public opinion — for voters’ evaluation of the government in power — than energy prices,…

On Wednesday the five-year breakeven inflation rate fell to 2.48 percent. If that doesn’t mean anything to you — which is completely forgivable if you aren’t a professional economy-watcher —…

We’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave. Also a temperate heat wave and an Arctic heat wave, with temperatures reaching the high 80s in northern Norway. The megadrought…

A funny thing happened on the way to the Federal Reserve’s latest rate hike. The Fed went big on June 15, raising the interest rates it controls by 75 basis…

Like many people, I expected the worst from the Jan. 6 committee: long, droning speeches, grandstanding by posturing politicians, lots of he-said-she-said.What we’ve gotten instead has been riveting and terrifying.…

One of the best-selling novels of the 19th century was a work of what we’d now call speculative fiction: Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward: 2000-1887.” Bellamy was one of the first…

Many political analysts have spent years warning that the G.O.P. was becoming an extremist, anti-democratic party.Long before Republicans nominated Donald Trump for president, let alone before Trump refused to acknowledge…

It is a truth universally acknowledged — well, anyway, a truth acknowledged by everyone I know who thinks about the subject — that a hot economy leads to higher wages…

Sado-monetarism is having a moment. And one of the biggest risks now facing the U.S. economy is that it will have too much influence over policy.This term, by the way,…

Interest rates are up. Stocks, especially glamour stocks, like Tesla, are down. And the crypto crash has been truly epic. What’s going on?Well, many people I read have been offering…

There’s a financial joke, whose origin I don’t know, that has been making the rounds lately. It goes like this: If inflation continues at current rates, the purchasing power of…

Even if you don’t play or follow golf — which I don’t — you’re probably aware of the controversy now engulfing the game. A number of the world’s top-ranked pro…

I’ve just finished a long European tour. No, I wasn’t playing Very Important Pundit, interviewing political and business leaders (although there were a few conferences along the way). Mostly I…

A few days ago The Times published a report on the drying up of the Great Salt Lake, a story I’m ashamed to admit had flown under my personal radar.…

Today’s newsletter isn’t about what the Federal Reserve or its counterpart the European Central Bank should be doing. I have views, of course: For what it’s worth, I think the…

Results from Tuesday’s primaries in California suggest that crime may be a big issue in the midterm elections. In San Francisco, a progressive prosecutor was ousted in a recall vote.…

Elon Musk is clearly having a moment; he’s trying to back out of his deal to buy Twitter, but he probably can’t without paying billions in damages. Perhaps that’s why…

Remember “The Big Short”? The 2010 book by Michael Lewis, made into a 2015 film, told the story of the 2008 global financial crisis by following a handful of investors…

As I pointed out in my latest column, the politics of inflation are dominated by concerns about gasoline and food prices — precisely the prices over which policymakers in general,…

On Monday, Eurostat, the European statistical agency, released a preliminary estimate of euro area inflation for March, and it was a shocker: 8.1 percent over the preceding year, 0.8 percent…

Inflation in the United States has probably peaked.I realize in saying that I risk coming across as the boy who cried “no wolf.” I called inflation wrong last year. Much…

It’s hard to say which of the Republican responses to the latest mass shooting was most reprehensible. The reliably awful Senator Ted Cruz attracted considerable attention by insisting that the…

Last week Stuart Kirk, the head of responsible investing (!) for HSBC’s asset management division, gave a talk titled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk,” in which he…

The sultans of Silicon Valley are in a political snit, with some billionaires suddenly turning against Democrats. It’s not just Elon Musk. Other prominent players, including Jeff Bezos, have lashed…

When I talk to business groups these days, the most commonly asked question is, “Are we headed for stagflation?” I’m pretty sure they find my response unsatisfying, because I tell…

Russia’s military failure in Ukraine has defied almost everyone’s predictions. First came abject defeat at the gates of Kyiv. Then came the incredible shrinking blitzkrieg, as attempts to encircle Ukrainian…

Last week TerraUSD, a stablecoin — a system that was supposed to perform a lot like a conventional bank account but was backed only by a cryptocurrency called Luna —…