I am not to familiar with Krugmans intellectual work or if it is legitimate research. I do know that he is incredible political and partisan. I wish the committee would stay away from contemporary partisan political people. I believe both Jimmy Carter and Al Gore were votes against Bush and the Right. The committee needs to have winners that stand up over time. Many of the politics these newest winners fight for have not played out over time. Some may be proven to be on the wrong side of history.
This is a Palinesque statment. In other words, unintelligent and tendentious. Sorry. The Nobel prizes in research areas, such as Mathematics, Medicine, Physics, and in this case Economics, are almost never controversial. The work of the prize winners has great and wide acclaim in thier respective fields. Review the prize winners in these categoies over the last 100 years. Thier work is often fundamental, profound, and represents a significant advancement in knowledge. The Peace Prize, for which Gore was awarded, as well as Kofi Annan, and Martin Luther King, is inherently political. It address political actors. It's silly to confuse the two.