Did the Harvard economist Greg Mankiw bend his views while serving as chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers (2003-2005)? This is the charge leveled by Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute in a post at TPM Cafe. Bernstein writes that during his confirmation hearing and subsequent tenure at the White House, Mankiw constantly defended supply-side beliefs that he once argued were the musings of “cranks and charlatans."
Not surprisingly, Mankiw has taken offense to being called a hypocrite, and seeks to correct the record at his eponymous blog. But Brad Delong, professor of economics at UC-Berkeley, isn't buying Mankiw's explanation.
