Randy T. Simmons is Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University's Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, and former Mayor of Providence, Utah. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon, and he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Utah League of Cities and Towns and a Member of the Utah Governor's Privatization Commission.

Professor Simmons’s books include the award-winning Beyond Politics: The Roots of Government Failure, Aquanomics: Water Markets and the Environment and The Political Economy of Culture and Norms: Informal Solutions to the Commons Problem. A contributing author to various volumes such as Re-Thinking Green: Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy, he is the author of scholarly articles that have appeared in numerous journals, and his popular articles have been published in newspapers and magazines across the United States.