Economics Battle Royale: Mankiw vs. Krugman

Mankiw's best selling textbook. Krugman's text.
Two authors of best selling textbooks, Greg Mankiw of Harvard and Paul Krugman of Princeton have been arguing, via their columns and blogs, about the very rosy economic forecast over the President's budget. Mankiw challenged Krugman to a bet, some of his Nobel Prize million, that GDP growth will not be as large as the President's budget predicts. Krugman called Mankiw "evil" and yet has not responded to the wager. My money is on my facebook friend Mankiw.

Here's the Washington Times today: "Harvard economics Professor Greg Mankiw thinks that Mr. Obama's growth forecasts are overly optimistic and that the federal deficit will be a lot larger than Mr. Obama thinks. He was chastised by Princeton's Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, who on his New York Times blog claims that Mankiw can only make the predictions that he does because of "more than a bit of deliberate obtuseness." He titled his post on Mankiw, "Roots of Evil."

Last Wednesday, Mankiw responded to Krugman's attacks by suggesting: "Well, Paul, if you are so confident in this forecast, would you like to place a wager on it and take advantage of my wickedness?" Krugman has still not responded. It seems even a Nobel Prize winner isn't willing to lay money on Mr. Obama's rosy projections."