Irvine Auditorium was surprisingly busy yesterday at 3 p.m., a full hour before Paul Krugman was scheduled to speak.
Krugman, the Princeton University economist and New York Times columnist who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics, drew a full house for his talk about the current state of economic affairs both in the United States and abroad.
In the tradition of such economic heavyweights as John Keynes and Irving Fisher, Krugman expressed his doubts about the potential of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which passed Tuesday, calling it "a little disappointing."
He rebuked the Republican objection to government spending included in the bill - but added that "they're right, and there will be spontaneous recovery in the long run," as he slowly began to grin. "As Keynes once said, 'In the long run, we are all dead.'"
Krugman's address was part of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics program's "Goldstone Forum," an event made possible by a donation from 1967 College alumnus Steven Goldstone, former chairman of Nabisco Group Holdings.
Goldstone expressed enthusiasm at having successfully pulled such a high-profile speaker to Penn. "I'm delighted to have Dr. Krugman here," he said, "and it's so great to see the Penn community out in such force."
That force was apparent by 4 p.m., when all three tiers of Irvine Auditorium had been filled. Students and faculty discussed their views on the current economic crisis and Krugman's politically charged biweekly New York Times column as they waited for the lecture to begin.
College senior David Wolfish, the student chairman of the PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board, expressed his relief at the high turn out despite the wet weather yesterday afternoon.
Regardless of how they were interpreted, Krugman's words generated a plethora of discussion among audience members for more than an hour after the talk ended.
College sophomore Kathy Qian said Krugman, unlike other speakers, "didn't meander."
However, this direct rhetoric was interpreted differently by College sophomore Michael Slotnick, who said it was "pretty clear that he had done this before. It seemed pretty rehearsed."
Krugman's self-declared "congenital" pessimism also pulled strong reactions from the audience. Jeff Weintraub, a PPE professor, chuckled as he summed up Krugman's claims in one sentence: "We're still going off the edge of a cliff."
This article has been updated to include Krugman's title as a Princeton University economist and his 2008 Nobel Prize.
