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STOCKHOLM He's been hailed of late for being basically right in his months and years of warning about a coming financial crisis. Now New York Times columnist -- and Princeton professor -- Paul Krugman has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics.

A favorite whipping boy for conservatives, he's been getting more and more time on TV lately as a political/economic commentator.

Krugman, 55, won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity. He formulated a new theory to answer questions about free trade, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

AP reports the following.
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“What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions,” the academy said in its citation.

“He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography,” it said.

Mr. Krugman was the lone of winner of the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award, the latest in a string of American researchers to be honored.

The award, known as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is the last of the six Nobel prizes announced this year and is not one of the original Nobels. It was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Nobel’s memory.