Robert J. Barro

Rules, discretion and reputation in a model of monetary policy

Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries

In neoclassical growth models with diminishing returns to capital, a country's per capita growth rate tends to be inversely related to its initial level of income per person.Thi...

A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model

A discretionary policymaker can create surprise inflation, which may reduce employment and raise government revenue. But when people understand the policymaker's objectives, the...

Convergence

A key economic issue is whether poor countries or regions tend to grow faster than rich ones: are there automatic forces that lead to convergence over time in the levels of per ...

International comparisons of educational attainment

Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogeneous Growth

One strand of endogenous-growth models assumes constant returns to a broad concept of capital. I extend these models to include tax-financed government services that affect prod...

A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility

Altruistic parents choose fertility and consumption by maximizing a dynastic utility function. The maximization implies an arbitrage condition for consumption across generations...

A Theory of Monopolistic Price Adjustment

Journal Article A Theory of Monopolistic Price Adjustment Get access Robert J. Barro Robert J. Barro The University of Chicago and Brown University Search for other works by thi...

Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries

For 98 countries in the period 1960-1985, the growth rate of real per capita GDP is positively related to initial human capital (proxied by 1960 school-enrollment rates) and neg...

Rational expectations and the role of monetary policy