N. Gregory Mankiw is Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. For 14 years he taught EC10 Principles, the most popular course at Harvard. He studied economics at Princeton University and MIT. Professor Mankiw is a prolific writer and a regular participant in academic and policy debates. His research includes work on price adjustment, consumer behaviour, financial markets, monetary and fiscal policy and economic growth. His published articles have appeared in academic journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Quarterly Journal of Economics. His work has also appeared in more widely accessible forums, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Fortune. Professor Mankiw has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Congressional Budget Office and a member of the ETS test development committee for the advanced placement exam in economics. From 2003 to 2005, he served as chairperson of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Mankiw’s texts in introductory and intermediate economics are the worldwide market leaders and have reached many millions of students. Mark P. Taylor is the Donald Danforth, Jr Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St Louis, USA. He was previously Dean of the Olin Business School and, before that, Dean and Professor of Finance and Economics at of Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, UK. He obtained his first degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University and a Master’s and Doctoral degrees in economics and finance from London University.. Professor Taylor has taught economics at various universities (including Warwick, Oxford, Marseille and New York), at various levels (from principles courses to advanced graduate and MBA courses) and in various fields (including macroeconomics, microeconomics and econometrics). He has also worked as a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and at the Bank of England and as a managing director at BlackRock, the world’s largest financial asset manager, where he ran a global investment fund based on macroeconomic analysis. His work has been extensively published in scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Political Economy and the Economic Journal, and he is today one of the most highly cited economists in the world in economic research. In addition, Professor Taylor has acted as an advisor to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank of England, the European Commission and to senior members of the UK government. He is a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a member of council of the Royal Economic Society and a fellow of both the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. Andrew Ashwin is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Management in the Lincoln International Business School, at the University of Lincoln in the UK. Andrew teaches and supports students doing undergraduate degrees and MBAs in Leadership and Management across a range of modules and also teaches Commercial and Operational Management to students following master's degrees in the Lincoln Institute for Agricultural Technology. He has an MBA from the University of Hull and a PhD in assessment and the notion of threshold concepts in economics from the University of Leicester. Andrew is an experienced author, writing a number of texts for students at different levels, and journal publications related to his PhD research as well as working on the development of online learning materials at the University of Bristol’s Institute of Learning and Research Technologies. Andrew was Chair of Examiners for a major awarding body for business and economics in England and is a subject specialist consultant in economics for the UK regulator, Ofqual. Andrew has a keen interest in assessment and learning in economics and has received accreditation as a Chartered Assessor with the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. He has also edited the journal of the Economics, Business and Enterprise Association.
