About the Authors

Without becoming biographical, we recently took some time to ask one another some questions that may help our readership understand what influences our writing – also we reveal which characters we think we are most like on the West Wing.

Jake

Who is your favorite Republican president of the modern era?
Gerald Ford. He spent the least time in office.

What book had the greatest impact on your worldview?
North Toward Home by Willie Morris. It’s not explicitly philosophical, but for me, a Mississippi boy who has long struggled with the state’s racial legacy and reactionary politics, the memoir of the great renounced-then-returned Mississippi writer is as close to an ethos as I have found. (It’s not a coincidence that I’ve followed Willie’s path to the Oxford University history department.)

If you could pick the brain of one living economist, who would it be and why?
Whoever the head of the Chinese central bank is. Despite the recent troubles, the U.S. economy should be relatively stable for the foreseeable future. The interesting developments will be political, not economic. China’s economic fate, however, is far from certain. How long can they maintain 8-10% annual growth rates before overheating? At what point does their exchange rate policy stifle domestic consumption? How quickly should they diversify their economy away from the dependence on manufacturing? These are all questions that will shape the world economy in the coming decades, and the answers have not yet been determined.

If you could remove an existing Amendment to the Constitution, which would it be?
It would be too cliché to say the Second, so I will choose the Tenth — the so-called “states’ rights” amendment. Not only has it been used to justify the perpetration of America’s two greatest evils — slavery and segregation — but it has generally overstayed any usefulness it might have had when primitive technology made the country much more dispersed and unwieldy than it is today. The United States is too integrated economically and culturally to be subject to the laws of 50 separate bodies. It creates a patchwork that is frustrating to businesses and consumers, not to mention legal headaches that clutter the dockets of our federal judiciary. Sure, the expansive reading of the Commerce Clause grants wide berth to the federal government to set national standards. And yes, there are issues that are better left to state and local policymakers. But it would be nice to get rid of the legal notion that the U.S. is still an agglomeration of semi-independent polities.

Which West Wing character do you most resemble in personality and ambition?
On my good days, Sam. On my bad days, Toby.

Beer or whiskey?
Beer by day, whiskey by night.




Tyler

Who is your favorite Founding Father and why?
Alexander Hamilton. He was a realist and economic visionary. He gets a bad rap for being some sort of monarchist, but I always thought he had a good understanding what it means to create a republic. He probably wrote most of the Federalist Papers. Also he was a genius.

What is the most important book of the 20th Century?
Keynes’ The General Theory on Employment, Interest and Money is probably the most important book of the 20th century for two reasons. First, it was written near the beginning of the century and thus gets to stand on its own and with the books it led to, Foundations of Economic Analysis by Samuelson for example. Second, whether people agree or disagree with it, everyone recognizes that it essentially changed the way governments behave in the economy. There were lots of great books in the 20th century, but when it comes to raw impact, General Theory takes the cake.

Do you consider economics to be a science?
I think that it has hints of science, particularly through its use of mathematics. In theory, most things are quantifiable but economics certainly hasn’t quantified every quantifiable thing at this point. It’s definitely not physics, but it’s more scientific than most social sciences. I am very intrigued by some of the emerging fields of economics, such as neuroeconomics. Many of these emerging fields, at least regarding micro, deal as much with decision-making theory as economics and are spawns of game theory.

If you could propose an Amendment to the Constitution, what would it be?
Congressional consecutive term limits. I have to think that out of 310 million people, more than 535 at any given time are truly capable of serving in the Congress. Specifically I would think 2 consecutive Senate terms and 5 or 6 consecutive House terms would be sufficient. Of course after taking a cycle off, people could always run again.

Which West Wing character do you most resemble in personality and ambition?
Josh Lyman.

Beer or whiskey?
Bourbon (we went to Ole Miss after all).