Mankiw, a Harvard University professor, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W Bush. He is a “New Keynesian”; while praising the insights of John Maynard Keynes into recession, he is part of a school taking issue with some of Keynes’s basic tenets, and has challenged the use of stimulus spending. His analysis in defence of the “one per cent,” arguing that while the super-rich may not be motivated by “an altruistic desire to advance the public good,” more often than not their actions have precisely that effect, prompted a 2011 walkout by several dozen students from his Harvard course.