Policymakers in western countries are not learning a good lessen from past experience and running the risk of responsibility abdication, said the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on Monday.

In his latest column article on The New York Times, Krugman cited the banking crisis in Austria in the early 1930s, which triggered worldwide panic, as an example to illustrate the danger of insufficient policy response by other countries which could have done more to help.

"The really crucial lesson of 1931, however, was about the dangers of policy abdication. Stronger European governments could have helped Austria manage its problems," Krugman said.

"But nobody with the power to contain the crisis stepped up to the plate; everyone who could and should have acted declared that it was someone else's responsibility. And it's happening again, both in Europe and in America," he noted.

Krugman said like Austria in 1931, Spain has troubled banks that desperately need more capital, but the Spanish government now, like Austria's government then, faces questions about its own solvency.

"It seems obvious that European creditor nations need, one way or another, to assume some of the financial risks facing Spanish banks," Krugman said.

But he added that lending money to the Spanish government and telling it to bail out banks would solve nothing and put Spain's government more deeply in debt.

Krugman also said the actions the U.S. Federal Reserve announced last week were "pathetically inadequate" as the U.S. economic prospects darkened and long-term unemployment problems persisted.

"As in 1931, Western nations have the resources they need to avoid catastrophe, and indeed to restore prosperity -- and we have the added advantage of knowing much more than our great- grandparents did about how depressions happen and how to end them. But knowledge and resources do no good if those who possess them refuse to use them," he added.