Lifestyles of rich and famous economists

Harvard's student newspaper, the Crimson, does a puff piece on Greg Mankiw's house.

Things I learned:

1. Greg's house is twice as big as mine, but I walk to my office and he has a 30 minute commute. Revealed preference suggests, well, different preferences!

2. Greg contracts out the production of his vegetable garden.

3. Greg shops at Whole Food and buys a lot of organic food. Perhaps a bit of a surprise there? But perhaps not as Whole Foods is really more about class (in the sociological sense) than about politics.

4. Greg is of Ukranian descent.

At the end of the day, there is the whiff of wrongness about this enterprise. I can't imagine either the Michigan Daily or the Chicago Marooon writing a piece like this. Students, in my view, should be young skeptics, not hero worshipers, even if the hero is, in this case, someone I like.