Today, many take it for granted that there is a president in the U. S., along with two houses of Congress. When the Constitution
was being written, none of this was certain. Take a moment to
imagine: how could the U. S. Constitution have been different?

Mankiw attributes – chapter 1 and his 10 principles – differences in living standards within a countryover time and across countries at a moment in time to: a. the presence or absence of inflation and unemployment.b. the allocation of resources between private markets and the public sector.c. those that have dealt successfully with the efficiency v. equality tradeoff and those that haven’t.d. differences in productivity.e. ones that think at the margin and respond to incentives and those that don’t.