Some of Ec 10’s chief proponents, including Mankiw and Head TF Silvia Ardagna, argue that the course already presents a sufficient diversity of views through guest lecturers and supplementary readings.

But some of the TFs interviewed for this article say the course could do a better job of offering different opinions.

Feldstein could not be reached for comment.

Two key characteristics combine to make Ec 10 particularly susceptible to accusations of bias.

Ec 10 is unlike its counterparts at most other colleges in its emphasis on readings and lectures about real-world issues and policymaking—going “beyond straight teaching of economics,” says Keith D. Gamble ’03, an outgoing TF.

While sections are devoted to the rudiments of theory, the dozen or so lectures per semester feature Feldstein or one of his colleagues expounding upon a field of economics of interest to them. In addition, the syllabus assigns scores of articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals that both analyze economic issues and recommend policy.

This focus on policy makes the political credentials of the course head more relevant. Both Feldstein and Mankiw can be placed on the conservative side of the economic political spectrum, according to most economists interviewed for this article. Both professors chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under Republican presidents.

While economics concentrator Jason E. Beren ’05 says that the course presents the economic concepts well, he says the problem lies in the fact that conservative viewpoints on issues like taxation sometimes go virtually unchallenged.

“With a simple counterpoint you can introduce at least the idea that things aren’t exactly according to the numbers,” Beren says. “I think Ec 10 does a bad, bad job at it.”

The second-semester unit on fiscal policy includes seven workbook readings analyzing whether the benefits of tax cuts as a stimulus to the economy outweigh the drawbacks of the budget deficits that tax cuts cause. Of the seven articles, three are by Feldstein and only one argues directly against tax cuts.

Ec 10, it turns out, is unique among introductory economics courses in how much criticism it attracts for being conservatively biased.

When professors at MIT, Yale, Princeton, Brown, and Stanford were asked if they had heard such complaints about introductory economics courses at their schools, all of them said there had been virtually none.

“I think that most students at Harvard are probably more liberal than conservative, so it’s possible that at other schools there is a closer match between the person who teaches the principles of economics and the students,” says Professor of Economics Caroline M. Hoxby ’88, who took Ec 10 in Feldstein’s first year teaching the course.

But she says that students may have had preconceived notions about the course because of Feldstein’s association with the Reagan White House.

“I think that [students] think the course is more conservative than it is,” Hoxby says. “They think well, Marty Feldstein is conservative, so he must be teaching us a conservative view of things.”