Tyler Cowen ( /ˈkaʊ.ən/; born January 21, 1962) is an American economist, academic, and writer. He occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. He currently writes the "Economic Scene" column for the New York Times, and he also writes for such publications as The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, and The Wilson Quarterly. Cowen is also general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. In February 2011, Cowen received a nomination as one of the most influential economists in the last decade through a survey by the Economist. He was placed #72 as the most influential Thinkers of 2011 by Foreign Policy Magazine.

Cowen was born on January 21, 1962. At the age of 15, Cowen became the youngest ever New Jersey State chess champion. Cowen graduated from George Mason University with a B.S. in economics in 1983 and received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1987. At Harvard, he was mentored by game theorist Thomas Schelling, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He is married to Natasha Cowen, a lawyer.

Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist, statistician, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades. He was a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and is known for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and the complexity of stabilization policy. As a leader of the Chicago school of economics, he influenced the research agenda of the economics profession. A survey of economists ranked Friedman as the second most popular economist of the twentieth century behind John Maynard Keynes, and The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century…possibly of all of it."

Friedman's challenges to what he later called "naive Keynesian" (as opposed to New Keynesian) theory began with his 1950s reinterpretation of the consumption function, and he became the main advocate opposing activist Keynesian government policies. In the late 1960s he described his own approach (along with all of mainstream economics) as using "Keynesian language and apparatus" yet rejecting its "initial" conclusions. During the 1960s he promoted an alternative macroeconomic policy known as "monetarism". He theorized there existed a "natural" rate of unemployment, and argued that governments could increase employment above this rate (e.g., by increasing aggregate demand) only at the risk of causing inflation to accelerate. He argued that the Phillips curve was not stable and predicted what would come to be known as stagflation. Friedman argued that, given the existence of the Federal Reserve, a constant small expansion of the money supply was the only wise policy.

James Andrew Coyne (born December 23, 1960) is a Canadian political columnist with the National Post and a member of the At Issue panel on CBC. Previously, he has been national editor for Maclean's, a weekly national newsmagazine in Canada and a columnist with the Globe and Mail.

Coyne was born in Ottawa, Ontario, the son of Hope Meribeth Cameron (née Stobie) and James Coyne, who was governor of the Bank of Canada from 1955 to 1961. His sister is actress Susan Coyne. He is also the cousin of constitutional lawyer Deborah Coyne, who is the mother of Pierre Trudeau's youngest child. Coyne studied at the University of Manitoba where he was editor of The Manitoban before transferring to the University of Toronto's University of Trinity College, from which he received a BA in economics and history. He received his master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics.

Coyne has said that he considers the political labels "left" and "right" to be "tribes" of "self-quarantine." He endorses a strong federal government, more market based economic solutions, and a stronger role for Canada in the War on Terror. Coyne is also a proponent of proportional representation in Canada's House of Commons.

Michael Vassar (born February 4, 1979) is an American futurist, activist, and entrepreneur. He is the president of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Personalized Medicine LLC.

Vassar advocates safe development of new technologies for the benefit of humankind. He has held positions with Aon, and the Peace Corps. He was a founder and Chief Strategist at SirGroovy.com, an online music licensing firm. He has co-authored papers on the risks of advanced molecular manufacturing with Robert Freitas, and has written the special report "Corporate Cornucopia: Examining the Special Implications of Commercial MNT Development" for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology Task Force.

Paul Robin Krugman ( /ˈkruːɡmən/; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. In 2008, Krugman won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences (informally the Nobel Prize in Economics) for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography. According to the Nobel Prize Committee, the prize was given for Krugman's work explaining the patterns of international trade and the geographic concentration of wealth, by examining the impact of economies of scale and of consumer preferences for diverse goods and services.

Krugman is known in academia for his work on international economics (including trade theory, economic geography, and international finance),liquidity traps and currency crises. He is the 17th most widely cited economist in the world today and is ranked among the most influential academic thinkers in the US.