Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist known for his blistering columns in The New York Times about the Bush administration’s policies, has won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced this morning.

The academy’s citation recognized Mr. Krugman for his “analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity,” in his devising of a new theory to answer questions about patterns of free trade.

He will receive the prize, worth about $1.4-million this year, at a ceremony in December. The prize, formally the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the only Nobel Prize not created by the Swedish industrialist. It was established by the bank in 1968.

In Mr. Krugman’s nine years as a Times columnist, he has ranged far beyond economics in his commentaries on current affairs, making him a comparative rarity as a professor-pundit unafraid to venture well outside his academic discipline. Some of his views on the correct role of the professor as pundit can be gleaned from an article published in The Chronicle in 1994. —Andrew Mytelka