U.S. economist Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday.

"Patterns of trade and location have always been key issues in the economic debate," the academy said in a statement.

"Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer a series of questions, such as what the effects of free trade and globalization are and what the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization are."

"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," the statement said.

Krugman, 55, is professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University in the United States.

The economics award, established in 1968 and officially called The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the last of the six prizes announced this year and is not part of the original crop of Nobel Prizes set out in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will.

The Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually since 1901 to those who "conferred the greatest benefit on mankind during the preceding year."

The Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and economics are handed out in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. The peace prize is presented on the same date in Norway's capital Oslo.

Laureates of the prizes receive a medal, a diploma and 10 million Swedish kronor (1.4 million U.S. dollars).

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2008)