Paul Krugman: “Israel’s Economy is One of the Happy Stories”

While at an economic conference in Tel Aviv, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said that Israel was one of the few countries to “ride out the storm,” referencing the global recession.  Krugman attributes Israel’s success to “aggressive monetary policy” which meant the kind of bailouts and stimulus packages used to stop the bleeding in the West was “not necessary…largely because the banking system was not involved in the kinds of excesses that were so prevalent elsewhere.”

Compared to 2009, unemployment is expected to drop just under a percentage point this year. While most of the world’s economies were stagnant if not shrinking, Israel’s economy grew starting in the second quarter of last year, growing 1.9 percent to as much as 4.5 percent by the fourth quarter.

To read more, click here for Hebrew and here for English.

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