A textbook case of competition
Call it the Econ 101 smackdown: Two of the country's most prominent economists are joining the battle for a piece of the $100-million-a-year Introductory Economics textbook market.
If you think this is small-potatoes business, think again. First-year econ is one of the most-taught undergraduate courses in the country. The current top dog, Harvard's N. Gregory Mankiw, a former chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, has sold 1 million copies of the different editions of ''Principles of Economics" since it was introduced in 1997. Depending on format, it costs between $70 and $120. You do the math.
Now Princeton professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and Glenn Hubbard, Mankiw's predecessor at the CEA and dean of Columbia University's business school, are climbing into the ring. Krugman, a much-decorated trade economist who doubles as the Michael Moore of the Times editorial page needs no introduction. Hubbard was a key architect of the controversial Bush administration tax cuts, which contributed mightily to our current budget deficit.
''As a drunk is to alcohol, the Bush administration is to budget deficits," was a typical, low-key Krugman comment during Hubbard's CEA stint. In a different column, after calling Hubbard ''a highly competent economist," Krugman accused him of publishing ''a ludicrously rigged study" on income mobility during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Hubbard chuckled when I reminded him how Krugman had attacked him. ''Oh, yes, many times," Hubbard recalled. He has read portions of Krugman's textbook and praises it. ''I think Paul is an excellent economist. People don't get into this business for political reasons." I told Hubbard that Krugman's publisher has shot promotional videos of a kinder, gentler Krugman discussing elementary economics with a civility far removed from his fire-breathing op-ed persona. Again, Hubbard chuckled: ''Well, I only have one personality to offer the public."
Wellesley College economist Karl Case, himself the coauthor of a successful ''principles" book, is a rapt spectator of the bout. ''Paul is decidedly on the left, and Glenn is decidedly on the right." Case has looked at the first half of the Krugman oeuvre -- the project is coauthored with his wife, economist Robin Wells -- about microeconomics. ''It's not as ideological as he is, at all, which is disappointing to me," Case says.
Steve Rigolosi, Krugman's editor at Worth Publishers, says, ''There is no political agenda in Paul's book. He uses his column for influence, but his textbook for education. His main purpose is to further economics education and reach a whole generation of students."
Publisher Pearson Prentice Hall is hyping the book by Hubbard and his coauthor, Anthony O'Brien, as ''the first economic text to teach theory and policy through the context of business." But Hubbard is steering clear of the chamber of commerce rhetoric. ''I think of it more as being real," he says. ''When students come to freshman economics, they have real questions: Why does Coke spend so much on advertising? Why aren't all countries rich? But if you pick up most textbooks, you'll see very little about how the economy works."
Will Krugman's fame help sell the book? ''A name gets you in the door," Hubbard says. But economists note that though the University of Nebraska's Campbell McConnell and Stanley Brue of Pacific Lutheran University aren't exactly household names, their well-regarded text, ''Economics," has been selling neck-to-neck with Mankiw for years. When future Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz coauthored an introductory textbook in the 1990s, it was hailed as the second coming of Alfred Marshall. The book has failed to meet expectations.
What does Mankiw think about the claimants to his throne? ''As an economist, I can't say there's anything bad about competition," he says. It's no accident that both Hubbard's and Krugman's publishers are pulling out all the stops to sell their respective books. ''It's like the movie business," Mankiw explains, as if delivering an Econ 101 lecture. ''Once you cover your fixed costs, you can make a lot of money at the margins." Translation: ''When you get a hit, it's quite profitable."
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 