The Dismal Science Fiction

Montreal played host to the 67th annual WorldCon Festival last week, arguably the largest gathering of the socially uncomfortable upon the island since that summer Jim attended GoonFest. Notable guests included Neil Gaiman, Charles Stross, and Paul Krugman. I think that last guy wrote some Twilight derivative, but I'll have to double check.

Yes, oddly though one can't say surprisingly enough, Paul Krugman is apparently quite the science fiction fan. Inhabiting only the nerdiest intersection of that Venn Diagram of Interests and Hobbies, Krugman, that sci-fi lovin,' econ-modelin,' New York Times collumnin' stud certainly must have gotten all of the ladies in high school.

Interested to see where else Krugman's interest in science fiction might have taken him over the years, I stumbled upon The Theory of Interstellar Trade. This was written by Krugman in 1978 and certainly it must have been a joke--a 15-page joke that never really decides which of the two is more self-satisfyingly hilarious: obscure Asimov* references or equally obscure economic puns.

God fucking dammit I am so glad he won the Nobel Prize.

Allow me to give you an impression of just how awesome an academic accomplishment this is:

"This is an inertial problem--which becomes a weighty problem in a gravitational field..."

Sarah Pinnington, eat your heart out.

"Among the authors who have not point this out are Ohlin (1933) and Samuelson (1947)."

Tongue, meet cheek. Now get ready for the cosmic burn:

"The second feature of interstellar transactions cannot be so easily dealt with (physicists are not as tolerant as economists of the practice of assuming difficulties away)."

Oh, snap Yale economics faculty of 1978! That one must burn like a quasar!

But he's only just warming up:

"It should be noted that, while the subject of this paper is silly, the analysis actually does make sense. This paper, then, is a seriously analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics."

Paul Krugman: truly putting the "dis" in dismal science.

And if any of you were actually curious, his primarily conclusion is that when trade is interstellar, interest payments should be based on the rate perceived by a planet-dweller of one of either of the two trading planets and not on that perceived by a time-dilated space ship entrepreneur. Also, interest-rates between trading planets will be equalized through arbitrage. Space arbitrage.

Good to know, no doubt.

*Please, Sol, allow me back upon the stage of your mind. I'll do naked if you want.