Robert Barro | |
---|---|
Born |
New York |
September 28, 1944
Nationality | United States |
Institution | Harvard University |
Field | Macroeconomics |
School or tradition |
New classical macroeconomics |
Alma mater | Harvard University (PhD 1970) California Institute of Technology (B.S. 1965) |
Doctoral advisor |
Zvi Griliches |
Doctoral students |
George-Marios Angeletos Zvi Hercowitz Xavier Sala-i-Martin Xavier Gabaix |
Influences |
David Ricardo Robert Lucas, Jr. |
Influenced |
Gary Gorton Alberto Alesina |
Contributions |
Ricardan Equivalence Hypothesis Economic growth Time consistency |
Information at IDEAS / RePEc |
Robert Joseph Barro (born September 28, 1944) is an American classical macroeconomist and the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University. The Research Papers in Economics project ranked him as the fifth most influential economist in the world, as of March 2016, based on his academic contributions. Barro is considered one of the founders of new classical macroeconomics, along with Robert Lucas, Jr. and Thomas J. Sargent. He is currently a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Barro graduated with a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1965, where he learned under Richard Feynman, but he realized he "wouldn't be close to the top in those fields." He then turned to economics and earned a PhD from Harvard University in 1970. He first reached wide notice with a 1974 paper, "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?" It argued that under certain assumptions, present borrowing would be matched by increased bequest to future generations to pay future taxes expected to pay the debt on the government bonds. The paper was in direct response to the Alan Blinder and Robert Solow's results, which had implied that the long term implications of government borrowing would be compensated for by the wealth effect. The paper is among the most cited in macreconomics. Its implications of his Ricardian equivalence are still being debated.
Barro collaborated with Herschel Grossman to produce the influential article "A General Disequilibrium Model of Income," which for many years held the distinction of being the most cited article published in the American Economic Review. The article explored the idea that disequilibrium in one market can have spillover effects to another market, creating a distinction between notional demand and effective demand. Barro and Grossman expanded on their work and produced the classic textbook Money, Employment, and Inflation in 1976.