Mankiw was born in Trenton, New Jersey to Ukrainian parents. In his youth, he attended the Pingry School, and then graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1980 with an AB in Economics. He spent a year working on his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a subsequent year studying at Harvard Law School. He worked as a staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982—83, foreshadowing his later position as chairman of that organization. After leaving the Council, he earned his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1984. He returned to Harvard Law for a year but, having nearly completed his PhD and realizing he was not as comparatively good at law, he left to teach at MIT for a year and then became an assistant professor of Economics at Harvard University in 1985 and full professor in 1987. He returned to politics when he was appointed by President George W. Bush as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in May 2003. He has since resumed teaching at Harvard, taking over the introductory economics course Social Analysis 10 (colloquially referred to as "Ec. 10"). This is the same course that had been taught for many years by Martin Feldstein, and which had long used Mankiw's textbook. Mankiw is currently a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

He has written two popular college-level textbooks: one in intermediate macroeconomics and the more famous Principles of Economics. More than one million copies of the books have been sold in seventeen languages.

Mankiw is a New Keynesian economist. He did important work on menu costs, which are a source of price stickiness. In 1989, he wrote a paper arguing that the aging of the baby boomers was going to undermine the housing market in the 1990s and 2000s. His advocacy at the CEA of tax cuts even in the face of large deficits led some other economists, such as Paul Krugman and J. Bradford DeLong, to criticize him as in thrall to Bush administration policies.

Mankiw has become an influential figure in the Blogosphere and online journalism since launching his blog. The blog, originally designed to assist his Ec10 students, has gained a readership that extends far beyond students of introductory economics. Economists' blogs | The invisible hand on the keyboard | Economist.com In particular, he has used it as a platform to advocate the implementation of pigovian taxes such as a revenue-neutral carbon tax; to this end Mankiw founded the informal Pigou Club. Greg Mankiw's Blog: The Pigou Club Manifesto

In November 2006, Mankiw became an official economic adviser to then-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's political action committee, Commonwealth PAC. In 2007, he signed on as an economic advisor to Romney's presidential campaign.

Benefits of outsourcing

Several controversies arose from CEA's February 2004 Economic Report of the President. Economic Report of the President - 2004 In a press conference, Mankiw spoke of the gains from free trade, noting that outsourcing of jobs by U.S. companies is "probably a plus for the economy in the long run." Harvard Econ Department - Contact Info for N. Gregory Mankiw While this reflected mainstream economic analysis, it was criticized by many people on the Republican side of US government who drew a link between outsourcing and the still-slow recovery of the U.S. labor market in early 2004.

Service versus manufacturing

Controversy also arose from a rhetorical question posed by the report (and repeated by Mankiw in a speech about the report): Remarks on the 2004 Economic Report of the President to the National Economists Club and Society of Government Economists "when a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, is it providing a service or combining inputs to manufacture a product?" The intended point was that the distinction between manufacturing jobs and service industry jobs is somewhat arbitrary and therefore a poor basis for policy. Even though the issue was not raised in the report, a news account led to criticism that the Administration was seeking to cover up job losses in manufacturing by redefining jobs such as cooking hamburgers as manufacturing.

2008—2009 Keynesian resurgence

In November 2008, Mankiw wrote in the New York Times:

"If you were going to turn to only one economist to understand the problems facing the economy, there is little doubt that the economist would be John Maynard Keynes. Although Keynes died more than a half-century ago, his diagnosis of recessions and depressions remains the foundation of modern macroeconomics. His insights go a long way toward explaining the challenges we now confront."

Mankiw has expressed skepticism about a trillion dollar spending package in the face of the global financial and economic crisis. He has vigorously criticized Vice-President Joseph Biden for suggesting there was complete unanimity of support among economists for a stimulus package.