M: Economics, The Basics

About the Author

Michael Mandel

Michael Mandel delights in translating complex economicconcepts into understandable, relevant, and exciting examples for a broadaudience. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University, where hestudied the intricacies of game theory. He is currently Senior Fellow at theMack Institute for Innovation Management at The Wharton School of theUniversity of Pennsylvania, as well as Chief Economist and Vice President atthe Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, DC. He writes about the policyimplications of innovation, regulation, and growth, both domestically andinternationally.

Previously, Mandel was Chief Economist of BusinessWeek(now Bloomberg Businessweek), where he regularly tackled such hot topicsas the economics of immigration, the power of technological innovation to drivegrowth, the importance of foreign trade, and consequences of tax policy.

Mandel’s columns and cover stories won numerous awards,including the Excellence in Economic Journalism Award from the Institute onPolitical Journalism, given to the writer “who has done the most to shapepublic opinion by giving the public a better understanding of economic theoryand reality”; the Gerald Loeb Award, the most prestigious prize for economicand financial journalism; and the Economic Journalist of the Year Award fromthe World Leadership Forum. He was also named one of the top 100 business journalistsof the 20th century.

Mandel is the author of several books, including RationalExuberance: Silencing the Enemies of Growth and Why the Future Is BetterThan You Think and The High-Risk Society. He also helped revise the1995 edition of Paul Samuelson’s classic economics textbook.

Mandel lives in Washington, DC, not far from the White Houseand the Capitol, with his wife Laura Gramling.