Biographical note

N. Gregory Mankiw is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. As a student, he studied economics at Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a teacher he has taught macroeconomics, microeconomics, statistics and principles of economics. Professor Mankiw is a prolific writer and a regular participant in academic and policy debates. In addition to his teaching, research and writing, Professor Mankiw has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and New York and the Congressional Budget Office. From 2003 to 2005, he served as chairman of the US President�s Council of Economic Advisors and was an advisor to presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 US presidential election. 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 Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, UK. He obtained his first degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University and his Master�s and Doctoral degrees in economics and finance from London University. Professor Taylor has taught economics and finance at various universities (including Oxford, New York, Bordeaux and Aix-Marseille) and at various levels (including principles courses and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses). 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 research has been extensively published in scholarly journals and he is today one of the most highly cited economists in the world.