[unperson]

I don't really understand the merits of comparing the production of a few months in one country to that of several years in another, but then again I'm not an economist (is he?).

For those interested, here is the source for his US data with a full history (rather than a selective sample), which clearly shows that recessions are relatively common:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO

[DenisM]

1. Yes, he is an economist. He's got a Nobel in Economics just this year. You can diss economics as a whole (Taleb-style or otherwose) but you can not diss Krugman alone.

2. The comparison is not of output of one country to another. The comparison is of one country, Ukraine, to istelf months by month and it shows a 28% YoY decline in manufacturing output. 28% umber is hard to judge without context, so to give perspective second graph shows that 28% is a halmark of a deep depression like the one in 1930s in the US.

3. Recessins are common, 28% drop is not common. Ukraine is in for a lot of pain.