Carl P. Close is Research Fellow and Academic Affairs Director for The Independent Institute and Assistant Editor of The Independent Review and editor of The Lighthouse, The Independent Institute’s weekly e-mail newsletter. Mr. Close is also co-editor or the books Re-Thinking Green: Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy and The Challenge of Liberty: Classical Liberalism Today. He received his B.A. in economics from San Francisco State University and his M.A. in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara where he also taught economics. Mr. Close has served as a policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a regulatory analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Bank of America. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Consumer Finance Law Report, and other publications.