Determinants of Economic Growth

Robert Barro has done a pathbreaking empirical work to pin down the determinants of growth. These lectures make that work available to a wide audience.

Allan H. Meltzer, University Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University

I think that this is an excellent summary of the empirical research on growth, which started with Professor Barro's own seminal 1991 paper. The literature has become so vast that it is now worth putting all these results together in a single book.

Xaviaer Sala-i-Martin, Professor of Economics, Columbia University and Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Robert Barro is the leading researcher in the influential empirical growth literature that emerged during the past decade. This book is a masterly summary of this literature which will be required reading for any serious growth student. As in Barro's other work, the analysis is focused around the role of convergence. However, there are also new ideas, including forecasts of growth rates until the end of this century, and an extended discussion of the interplay between political regimes and growth. I have no doubts that this book will become a standard reference in courses on Macroeconomics and Growth Theory, and will be an important source of ideas for researchers, investors, and policy makers, alike.

Sergio Rebelo, Professor of Economics, Rochester University

Professor Barro has been right in the vanguard of the recent empirical literature on economic growth and development. In this little book he provides fascinating new evidence on the interplay between democracy and economic development, and of the impact of inflation on growth, as well as reviewing the evidence on convergence. In all respects a tour-de-force.

Charles Bean, Professor, London School of Economics