Paul Theodore Heyne (2 November 1931 - 9 March 2000) was a lecturer in economics for nearly a quarter century at the University of Washington in Seattle, United States. Heyne taught at Valparaiso University (1957–66), Southern Methodist University (1966–76), and the University of Washington (1976–2000). He was a well-trained theologian, a gifted and dedicated teacher of economics for over forty years, and the author of a highly regarded and widely used textbook, The Economic Way of Thinking which has gone through 11 editions.
Heyne received two divinity degrees from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, took his master's degree at Washington University and his Ph.D. in ethics and society at the University of Chicago. He came to the UW in 1976, and reportedly turned down a tenured position to become a senior lecturer because of his interest in teaching undergraduates.
Heyne promoted economics through his interests with religion, social issues, justice and free market economies. His best known work was his critically acclaimed introductory textbook The Economic Way of Thinking, which sold 200,000 copies in Russia alone and has been translated in Bulgarian (1995), Czech, Hungarian, Romanian and other languages. Heyne was committed to undergraduate education, and was widely regarded as being a highly effective teacher of economics.