Xavier X. Sala i Martín (also ''Sala-i-Martin'' in English) is a Spanish-born
Catalan-American economist and professor of economics at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. Sala i Martin is one of the leading economists in the field of economic growth.
[http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/papers/WEC_00220_00701_Snowdon.pdf ]
Born in
Cabrera de Mar
Cabrera de Mar () is a municipality of the ''comarca'' of Maresme in Catalonia, Spain.
It is located next to the Català mediterranean coast, between the municipalities of Vilassar de Mar and Mataró, although the urban centre is at about inl ...
,
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the no ...
, Sala i Martin earned a degree in economics from the
Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1985. He completed his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
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* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
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** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
in economics from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
in 1990.
In addition to working at Columbia, he has been a professor at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, and the
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Pompeu Fabra University ( ca, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, ; es, link=no, Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. The university was created by the Autonomous Government of Catal ...
in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
and the
Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, where he usually visits for a term every summer.
Professional work
Sala i Martin is one of the leading economists in the field of economic growth
and is consistently ranked among the most-cited economists in the world for works produced in the 1990s. His works include the topics of
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate o ...
, development in Africa, monetary economics, social security, health and economics, convergence, and
classical liberal thinking, with his book ''Liberal Economics for Non-Economists and Non-Liberals''. The "liberal" in the title should be understood in the classic liberal/
libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's en ...
sense.
He has constructed an estimate of the world distribution of income, which he has then used to estimate poverty rates and measures of inequality. The conclusions of this study offered a new point of view for two reasons. Firstly, the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
and the
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
used to believe that although poverty rates were falling, the total number of poor people was increasing. He claimed that both were falling. Secondly, the United Nations and the World Bank believe that individual income inequalities were on the rise. He claimed that they were not.
Sala i Martin is the author of the economic growth textbook ''Apuntes de Crecimiento Economico'' and the co-author (with
Robert Barro) of the textbook ''Economic Growth''.
Sala i Martin and
Elsa V. Artadi are the authors of the Global Competitiveness Index, used since 2004 for the
Global Competitiveness Report
The ''Global Competitiveness Report'' (GCR) is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. Since 2004, the ''Global Competitiveness Report'' ranks countries based on the Global Competitiveness Index, developed by Xavier Sala-i-Martin an ...
, an index published by the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
that ranks 142 countries by their level of economic competitiveness.
He often collaborates with Catalan media to support the independence of Catalonia from Spain. In 2014 he had a public confrontation with Jose Manuel Durão Barroso, the president of the European Commission, reproaching him the lack of support towards a democratic resolution of the conflict between Spain and Catalonia.
Other activities
Sala i Martin was a board member at
FC Barcelona
Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football.
Found ...
and treasurer of the club between 2004 and 2010. He was the president of the club during the electoral process of 2006.
He is the founder of Umbele: A Future for Africa, a nonprofit organization that promotes economic development in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
.
He is a columnist for the Spanish newspaper ''
La Vanguardia
' (; , Spanish for "The Vanguard") is a Spanish daily newspaper, founded in 1881. It is printed in Spanish and, since 3 May 2011, also in Catalan (Spanish copy is automatically translated into Catalan). It has its headquarters in Barcelona and i ...
''. He makes weekly appearances on the Catalan radio network
RAC 1 and in the television show ''Divendres''. He also contributes to
CNN.
He supports
Catalan independence and gives conferences around Catalonia, in name of the pro-independence association that he and other university teachers created for that purpose, (Col·lectiu Wilson).
Prizes
He has been recognized with a Distinguished Teacher in Graduate Economics award three times at Columbia and Yale, with the 2004 King Juan Carlos I Prize (a biannual prize given to the best economist in Spain and Latin America), and the 2006 Lenfest Prize awarded to the best teacher at Columbia University.
On 15 January 2017, Martin was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 14 in the list of 100 Most Influential Economists.
Works
*
*
* Sala-i-Martin, Xavier;
Pinkovsky, Maxim (March 2010). ''African poverty is falling ... much faster than you think!'', NBER Working Paper Nr. 15775, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
References
External links
Personal home page of Xavier Sala-i-MartinUmbele
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sala-I-Martin, Xavier
1962 births
Living people
Growth economists
Economists from Catalonia
Harvard University alumni
Harvard University faculty
Columbia University faculty
Pompeu Fabra University faculty
American people of Catalan descent
American libertarians
Autonomous University of Barcelona alumni