Changes to New York Times economics coverage

David Leonhardt writes about changes to the New York Times’ economics coverage, particularly its columnists, in Wednesday’s paper.

Leonhardt wrote, “If you read Sunday’s business section, you probably noticed that Gregory Mankiw, the Harvard economist, blogger and Republican policy adviser, wrote the Economic View column. His debut as a regular contributor is the start of some changes in our economics coverage.

“The View column will now be written by a rotating panel of outside economists. Besides Mr. Mankiw, it will include Alan Blinder, Judith Chevalier, Robert Shiller and Lester Thurow, as well as three of the economists who have been writing the Economic Scene column on Thursdays: Austan Goolsbee, Tyler Cowen and Robert Frank. (The fourth member of the Scene rotation, Hal R. Varian, is leaving to concentrate on his new role as Google’s chief economist.)

“They are a stellar group, and they will use the column to examine everything from big policy questions to the economics of everyday life. By moving the economists to Sunday, when our section isn’t filled with news, we think we can give their writing more attention.

“My column will now be called Economic Scene, keeping alive a name that’s been appearing in these pages almost continuously since 1972.”

Read more here.