Book review: Krugman, P. (2020), Arguing with zombies
Author
Faculty Advisor
Date
2022
Keywords
corporate tax rates, government spending, economy
Abstract (summary)
As an undergraduate student in the 1990s, Paul Krugman's work, along with that of Joseph Stiglitz, was instrumental in my studies in economics. As an instructor in the 2020s, I was excited to find that the Nobel Laureate's book Arguing with Zombies, which is mainly based on his New York Times columns, helped to make sense of the economic orientation and situation in my home province, Alberta, where the United Conservative Party (UCP) came to power in 2019. The UCP government was extremely concerned about the previous government raising the minimum hourly wage by more than C$4 in fewer than three years but showed no qualms in reducing corporate tax rates by 4 percentage points, eliminating the carbon tax and cutting spending. This approach continued through the COVID-19 pandemic, as the government cut the post-secondary budget by 20 per cent over a four-year plan, and proposed a 3 per cent wage rollback for overworked nurses in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, while announcing investments to the tune of billions of Canadian dollars in Keystone XL, a risky and unnecessary oil pipeline.
Publication Information
Jahangir, J. B. (2022). Book review: Krugman, P. (2020): Arguing with Zombies, New York, NY, USA (416 pages, W.W. Norton and Company, hardcover, ISBN 978-1-324-00501-8), European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies, 19(1), 174-176. https://doi.org/10.4337/ejeep.2022.01.12
Notes
Item Type
Review
Language
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)
