File photo of Paul Krugman of Princeton Univsersity. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday, Oct. 13, 2008, that Krugman has won the Nobel economics prize "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity

U.S. economist Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday.

STOCKHOLM, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. economist Paul Krugman Monday won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity."

"Patterns of trade and location have always been key issues in the economic debate," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

"Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer a series of questions, such as what the effects of free trade and globalization are and what the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization are."

"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," the statement said.

Krugman, 55, is professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University in the United States.

His approach is based on the premise that many goods and services can be produced at less cost in long series, a concept known as economies of scale.

By having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity, Krugman's ideas have given rise to an extensive reorientation to the research on these issues, the statement added.

Answering questions at a news conference in Stockholm by phone from the United States, Krugman compared the current global financial crisis to the financial crisis that gripped Asia in the 1990s.

Krugman is an ardent critic of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and its domestic and foreign policies.

He also taught at Yale University, the London School of Economics, Stanford, and MIT and has also written 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals.

The economics award, established in 1968 and officially called The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the last of the six prizes announced this year and is not part of the original crop of Nobel Prizes set out in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will.

The Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually since 1901 to those who "conferred the greatest benefit on mankind during the preceding year."

The Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and economics are handed out in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. The peace prize is presented on the same date in Norway's capital Oslo.

Laureates of the prizes receive a medal, a diploma and 10 million Swedish kronor (1.4 million U.S. dollars).