SEOUL, South Korea - May 19, 2009 - The United States may emerge from Depression as early as this summer, though further job losses mean a "depressed economy" could last as long as five years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said Tuesday.

"I think it's quite possible that industrial production in the United States and perhaps in the world as a whole will bottom out sometime in the next few months, that GDP growth in the United States will be positive in the second half of the year and maybe a little bit later than that in Europe," Krugman told a global financial conference in Seoul.

Krugman said that he would not be surprised if the U.S. Depression, which began in December 2007, ended in August or September of this year. But job losses were likely to continue into 2011, meaning "the period of a depressed economy" could last until 2013 or 2014, he said.

Krugman, who teaches at Princeton University, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences last year for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect international trade patterns. He also writes columns for The New York Times.