Readers of the Sunday business section of The New York Times might have noticed that the "Economic View" column was written by Greg Mankiw, a Harvard professor and prolific blogger, rather than the usual David Leonhardt.

At the end of his column yesterday, Leonhardt said "Economic View" would henceforth be written by a roster of outside experts, most of them academics. Besides Mankiw, the rotating list includes Alan Blinder, Judith Chevalier, Robert Shiller and Lester Thurow, along with three of the economists who have written the Times's "Economic Scene" column on Thursdays: Austan Goolsbee, Tyler Cowen, and Robert Frank.

Over at his blog, Mankiw asks whether this is a "fair and balanced" group, one that represents the range of views in the American Economic Association. He also asks readers to nominate economists they think should be added to the list.

Mankiw's Harvard colleague Dani Rodrik would not alter the list ("with one glaring exception"), but he is perplexed by Mankiw's focus on the political orientation of these economists: "Is Greg implying that he and his fellow commentator-economists filter their views on economic matters through an ideological prism?"