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. Cowen and Tabarrok have also ventured into online education by starting Marginal Revolution University. He currently writes the "Economic Scene" column for the New York Times. He also writes for such publications as The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, and the Wilson Quarterly. Cowen also serves as general director of George Mason's Mercatus Center, a university research center that focuses on the market economy. In February 2011, Cowen received a nomination as one of the most influential economists in the last decade in a survey by The Economist. He was ranked #72 among the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" in 2011 by Foreign Policy Magazine "for finding markets in everything."Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.