"He was a very good teacher. Very rarely do people pull you aside and tell you how to teach better," says Mankiw. "It was nice to have Larry pull me aside and give me little pointers here and there."

These teaching skills, says Mankiw, would serve him well as he advises the president.

"What he did with 18 year olds in Ec.10 is not that much different from what he will do with George. W Bush, even though he's older," Mankiw says.

Lindsey's influence over the economic policies of the new administration will be of particular importance, given recent fears surrounding the potential downturn of the economy.

"Larry, to his credit, has been saying for some time that there are some real weaknesses in this economy.... It sure looks that way now," Feldstein told The New York Times earlier this month.

Yet, it is difficult to predict the economic situations that Lindsey will encounter in the upcoming year, says IBM Professor of Business and Government Roger B. Porter.

"There's really no way of knowing," said Porter, who held Lindsey's new position in the Ford, Reagan and Bush administrations. "We can hardly tell what they're going to be three months from now."