astronomy

Per Krusell

Per Krusell is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Per Krusell rather than just read about it. In short: Per Lennart Krusell (born 1959) is a Swedish macroeconomic theorist who is currently the Torsten and Ragnar Soderberg Chair in Economics and the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University, as well as Centennial Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. Until recently, he was a professor of economics at Princeton University and, before that, held positions at the University of…

Key takeaways

Per Krusell belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Per Krusell to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Per Krusell from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Per Lennart Krusell (born 1959) is a Swedish macroeconomic theorist who is currently the Torsten and Ragnar Soderberg Chair in Economics and the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University, as well as Centennial Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. Until recently, he was a professor of economics at Princeton University and, before that, held positions at the University of Rochester, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern University. He received numerous awards and grants, most recently the 2007 Söderberg Prize and a 2.1 Million Euro 2008 senior research grant from the European Research Council. Krusell's research has focused on macroeconomics, broadly defined, with particular contributions in the areas of technological change, inequality, political economy, macroeconomic policy, and labor economics. He is currently pursuing a long-term project on the interactions between global climate change and the economy. He is especially known for developing the most widely used computational algorithm for calculating macroeconomic equilibrium under rational expectations in economies with heterogeneous agents and aggregate uncertainty when financial markets are incomplete. His work with Jeremy Greenwood and Zvi Hercowitz on investment-specific technological progress has also been extremely influential. Krusell was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2003. Since 2003, he is a member of the Prize Committee for The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, and its chair from 2011 to 2013. He served as the president of the European Economic Association in 2020.

Influential publications 1. "Long-Run Implications of Investment-Specific Technological Progress",JSTOR 2951349 American Economic Review, June 1997, (with Jeremy Greenwood and Zvi Hercowitz). Casual empiricism suggests that technological progress is often embodied in the form of new and improved capital goods. Many examples come to mind: computers, robots, cell phones and the like. The paper analyzes the role of this type of technological change in U.S. economic growth. The results suggest that investment-specific technological progress accounts for the major part of U.S. economic growth over the postwar period. 2."The Role of Investment-Specific Technological Change in the Business Cycle",doi:10.1016/S0014-2921(98)00058-0 European Economic Review, 2000, (with Jeremy Greenwood and Zvi Hercowitz). This research incorporates the notion of investment-specific technological progress into a business cycle model.

See also Per Krusell's homepage "Most widely held works by Per Krusell". WorldCat.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Per Krusell

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Per Krusell claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Per Krusell before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Per Krusell ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Per Krusell

In research: Per Krusell appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Per Krusell in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Per Krusell is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1959 births, Academic staff of Stockholm University, Computational economists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Per Krusell outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Per Krusell in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Per Krusell means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Per Krusell out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Per Krusell in simple terms?

Why does Per Krusell matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Per Krusell?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Per Krusell.