Return Depression Economics

"The Return of Depression Economics" by Paul Krugman

Summary:   This is a 5-page book review of the book "The Return of Depression Economics" by Paul Krugman. It provides a brief back ground of the writer and presents his theories, then continues to analyze the theories and reviews its application to today’s era.
Introduction:
The Book under review has been written by Professor Paul Krugman, the world famous economist who wrote in 1994 about the myth of Asian growth and in 1998 advocated capital controls for crisis-hit Asian countries. Over the years the Asian crisis, has heightened Krugman's stature, for he stands at the center of academic debate on the causes of and responses to the implosion of the ''Asian Miracle''. Paul Krugman is an MIT professor who looks at the string of financial crises that shut various economies around the globe in the 1990s, especially the Asian contagion, and sees an "eerie resemblance to the Great Depression." Instead of the "new world order" promised by the triumph of capitalism over socialism, "the world economy has turned out to be a much more dangerous place than we imagined."
Krugman's forecasts the return of depression economics, which "means that for the first time in two generations, failures on the demand side of the economy--insufficient private spending to make use of the available productive capacity--have become the clear and present limitation on prosperity for a large part of the world." It's the same problem that was at the root of the 1930s depression. And while it took a world war to solve that problem, Krugman sees solutions that are far less dramatic but that do require a willingness to chuck obsolete doctrines and think about old problems in new ways.
Over the years, Krugman has earned a reputation for translating the jargon that economists speak into something that anyone with an interest--not necessarily a Ph.D.--can understand. The Return of Depression Economics is another testament to Krugman's ability...