Robert J. Barro (1944–)

Robert J. Barro, first as a graduate student, and later, as a teacher at Harvard, has made profound contributions to economic science. His activities have encompassed areas including pure and applied macroeconomics and international economics; monetary and fiscal policy; business cycle and growth theory; political economy of democracy and religion; and economic and health-related disasters. Barro’s academic activities have included editing major economic outlets, such as the Journal of Political Economy and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. His writings include textbooks, academic and policy papers, and economic commentaries in the press and on the internet. He has also written well-received polemical tomes. Whether one agrees with his libertarian economic worldview or not, Robert Barro can be considered an economist’s economist.