Greg Mankiw:
Million-dollar economics author

His first text, Macroeconomics published by Worth in 1992, and in its third edition in 1997, became the leading text for macroeconomics courses and showed publishers that he could write a text that could sell. Mankiw said Harcourt's Dryden Press and several other publishers asked him to write a principles text. "I signed up with my track record," Mankiw said. "The book hadn't even been written yet. I didn't even show any samples." Principles in Economics debuted in August 1997. By October it had sold 60,000 copies -- 43,000 more than Dryden forecast by that date. Before the second edition was published in 1999, the first edition had easily earned out the advance with 200,000 copies.

In 1987, at age 29, Mankiw became one of the youngest tenured professors in the history of Harvard. His early tenure, academic stature, success as a teacher, and his new approach to teaching economics, made him the natural choice to write an economics principles text.

Mankiw said he felt completely unrestrained while writing Principles: "I took a lot of advice, but I'm also pretty stubborn. If I think what I'm doing is right, I'll fight for it." He said the feedback process when writing Principles was tremendous. His wife Deborah, who has a bachelor's in economics, read the first drafts. But the single smartest move he made in the writing process, he said, was getting the right editors, including Jane Tuss, a freelance development editor. "There is no other thing nearly as exciting to write for than freshman economics," Mankiw said. "I get to introduce students at the basic level to the field of economics. I don't find anything nearly as challenging." He says he likes to write in the morning because he gets "too sleepy after lunch." He usually writes three hours per day, seven days per week and teaches in the afternoon.

Principles of Economics was pedogically different. It was organized differently. At 797 pages, it was shorter than previous texts -- about half the size of traditional texts. It had an open design, not a lot of dense type. Each chapter contains case studies. A section called "In the News," featured actual news articles relating to economics topics being discussed in the chapters. Keeping in line with his idea that a book should be written for students, not instructors, the book used examples students can relate to illustrate complex concepts. In one chapter Mankiw used actor Jim Carrey and basketball star Shaquille O'Neil to illustrate how the characteristics of workers and jobs affects labor supply, demand and wages.

Mankiw wrote Macroeconomics one year after he received tenure at Harvard. He was teaching an intermediate economics course and thought "if I'm going to prepare lecture notes, it won't be much harder to write a book." He was wrong, he later realized. It took him three years to write the book and now that he's written Principles, he won't write another. "Two textbooks are enough for one lifetime," he said, although he said he would continue to revise Principles and also Macroeconomics. He does plan to write trade books, which he says are "less pedagogical and more fun to write." His first, he said, will be on the life of John Maynard Keynes.

He took a leave from Harvard in 1997, after finishing Principles, to spend time with his wife and two children. It was a period when some authors would have been out promoting their work -- but not Mankiw. "I don't enjoy sales. I've given a few talks, had dinner with some adopters at the University of Miami, and talked with several reporters, but other than that, I'm leaving the selling up to Harcourt." Mankiw has also appeared on McNeil-Lehrer News Hour three times, Nightwatch with Charlie Rose, C-SPAN-American Enterprise Institute Conference, and CBS Nightly News. His signing with Harcourt and the record making advance and royalties was written about in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.

In 2001 Mankiw said he was surprised at how well the book had done: "I had confidence in the book and had worked hard on it, but that it has done so well, reached the position it's in, is a shock."

While Mankiw didn't see any imitators, at least not right away, he said the way that economics courses are being taught is changing. He isn't sure whether this change reflects a broadening in the teaching of economics or was created by the new approach reflected in his text -- his book emphasizes that the two big topics in macroeconomics, the business cycle and inflation, should be taught with more balance. Mankiw is modest: "My book was the leading indicator of what was happening in the profession. I think this change would have happened with or without my text."

Although the second edition retained the first edition's overall structure, Mankiw admits that certain chapters didn't get enough of his time in the first edition. He fleshed them out in the second edition. "I started the revision by working backwards, revising the last chapters first," he said. "Economics is very easy to revise because of the changes in the field." He's working on revisions every day, he said: "I'm always on the lookout for news articles that would work well in the book. I add them to the manuscript in my computer and then when I go to revise the book every few years, it's all there."

The decision to do the second edition was automatic, said Mankiw, and only a poor showing in the marketplace would have killed it: "Given the book was a commercial success, it was automatic that it would get revised on a regular schedule."

Mankiw said he has no plans to write a third textbook. The work of revising two texts -- he also wrote a macroeconomics text in its fourth edition in 2001-- is enough for him, he said. He dreams of reaching an adult audience by authoring a trade book in economics, but hasn't had the time yet. For three years, he wrote a column for Fortune magazine, something he said, that allowed him "to reach different people in a different way and spread economic literacy in an another way."

Although now a millionaire, Mankiw hasn't done anything spectacular with the money. There were no Concorde trips to Paris, although he bought a new minivan from the $1.4 million advance. There was no dream house, although he installed a new brick patio. He also took two semesters of unpaid leave from Harvard to enjoy some time off with his wife and two children. "It's given me the luxury to take life a little easier," he said.

Mankiw and his wife had a third child in 1999.