Audience with Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman
posted 25 Jan 2015, 17:35 by Peter Black
[
updated 7 Feb 2015, 17:16
]
The keynote luncheon speaker at the Asian Financial Forum on Tuesday 20 January 2015 in Hong Kong was Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Professor Paul Krugman, and what a privilege to be in the audience.
He delivered a wide ranging speech covering China, India, the US, Europe, demographics, oil - but not Africa for which he claims not having specialist knowledge although acknowledged its future importance. Amongst the points he made during this speech were:
There are 3 Ds that got countries and regions into trouble - Deleveraging, Demographies and Dogma
Amazing that in the last 6 years policy makers around the world have worried about the wrong things
China scares him - because of the scale of adjustment required to move from an investment led to a consumption led economy and the unfavorable demographics are very much like Japan
Europe is not in a good state - economically and geopolitical - "it is Japan without the social cohesion"
the US economic recovery looks good amongst wealthy countries, but it is transient
India is better positioned than China for future growth
Coal is more important than oil
the global politics is changing on climate change
A summary of Professor Krugman's thoughts are in this accompanying interview and is worth just under 6 minutes of your time.
Paul Krugman at Asian Financial Forum January 2015
So, if he was the only person I saw in Hong Kong, the whole trip would have been worthwhile!
