Income Inequality Institute to Pay Paul Krugman $225,000 to Talk About…Income Inequality

The City University of New York will pay economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman an estimated $225,000 over the course of nine months to participate in certain activities involving the school’s Graduate Center and Luxembourg Income Study Center.

American economist Paul Krugman will be paid nearly $300,000 to engage in activities involving the City University of New York's ongoing examination of "income inequality." (AP)

The Luxembourg Income Study Center’s sole purpose is to study income pattern and inequality levels, according to Gawker.

Krugman will be required to serve two semesters and will be paid $25,000 per month, according to a letter Gawker obtained under New York’s Freedom of Information law.

The letter states that for $225,000 total, Krugman will be expected to “play a modest role in our public events” and “contribute to the build-up” of a the school’s “inequality initiative.”

Despite his appointment as a "distinguished professor" in the school's economics Ph.D. program, the letter says the Nobel Prize-winning economist will not "be expected to teach or supervise students."

Krugman was impressed with the offer, replying to the school: “I admit that I had to read it several times to be clear ... it’s remarkably generous.”

Krugman, a fierce and enthusiastic supporter of Keynesian, top-down economics, will host one seminar in the second semester of his tenure.

Image source: Gawker

CUNY is a publicly funded school, according to Gawker, and pays its adjunct professors roughly $3,000 per course. Meanwhile, tenured professors make approximately $116,364 per year. Tenured professors are expected to teach, hold seminars and publish.

“Perhaps I’m being premature or forward,” the Graduate Center’s President, Chase Robinson said in an email to Krugman, “but I wanted you to have no doubt that we can provide not just a platform for public interventions and a stimulating academic community­—especially, as you will know, because of our investments in the study of inequality—but also a relatively comfortable perch.”

–

Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter