An aggressive debate between Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University, and Paul Krugman, professor of economics at Princeton University, was a ¡®debate of the century¡¯ indeed. A fervent debate between the two globally renowned scholars was literally a war of words which was the hottest event of the 11th World Knowledge Forum on October 13th.

As the debate began, Ferguson and Krugman were eager to refute the ideas of one another. Their voices got louder during the war of words. None of them seemed to back down.

Ferguson attacked first, referring to Krugman¡¯s perception of the current situation. ¡°People who don¡¯t study history are prone to bad historical analogies. The current situation is very far from the Great Depression. We wouldn¡¯t find much evidence about that we need yet more fiscal stimulus,¡± he said.

Krugman countered Ferguson¡¯s argument one by one. He described that there are similarities in the current economic situation with those found in the Great Depression in the 1930s and Japanese recession in the 1990s. He pointed out that 2.5 million public sector jobs disappeared with the incoming of the Obama administration, because the stimulus package was not sufficient enough to have positive effects through individual states and cities.

Their quarrel did not stop after the debate. During the press meeting after the session, Krugman argued that Ferguson? arguments were weak and baseless, with no concrete evidence to support his claim. In contrast, Ferguson told reporters that he was clearly better than Krugman in the debate.

They also wrote comments about the debate on their twitters. Ferguson wrote ¡°Fascinating first trip to Seoul. They are serious here about Asian integration. I¡¯m impressed. Oh, and we had the Ferguson-Krugman re-match.¡± Krugman also left a short message under the title ¡°the Seoul Feud.¡± He described the debate as a fun game.