Xavier X. Sala i Martín (also ''Sala-i-Martin'' in English) is a Spanish economist and professor of economics at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. In addition to working at Columbia, he has been a professor at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, and the

Universitat Pompeu Fabra Pompeu Fabra University (, ; ) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. Established in 1990 by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia and named after Pompeu Fabra, it is known for its competitiveness in resea ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of 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.

Early life and education

Born in Cabrera de Mar,

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

, Sala i Martin earned a degree in economics from the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...

in 1985. He completed his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in economics from

in 1990.

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 In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

, development in Africa, monetary economics, social security, health and economics, convergence, and

classical liberal Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, eco ...

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 ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...

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 the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

and the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

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 Robert Joseph Barro (born September 28, 1944) is an American macroeconomist and the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Barro is considered one of the founders of new classical macroeconomics, along with Robert Lucas ...

) 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) was a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. Between 2004 and 2020, the ''Global Competitiveness Report'' ranked countries based on the Global Competitiveness Index, developed by Xavier Sa ...

, an index published by the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

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

José Manuel Barroso José Manuel Durão Barroso (; born 23 March 1956) is a Portuguese politician and law professor. He previously served from 2002 to 2004 as the List of Prime Ministers of Portugal, 114th prime minister of Portugal and from 2004–2014 as the 11 ...

, 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 known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça (), is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of ...

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. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. He is a columnist for the Spanish newspaper ''

La Vanguardia ' (; , ) is a Spanish daily newspaper founded in 1881. It is printed in Spanish and, since 3 May 2011, also in Catalan. It has its headquarters in Barcelona and is Catalonia's leading newspaper. Despite being mostly distributed in Catalonia, ...

''. He makes weekly appearances on the Catalan radio network

RAC 1 RAC 1 is the main Catalan language private radio station. It is mainly owned by Grupo Godó and is based in Barcelona. It has a sister radio station, RAC 105, dedicated to chart music. RAC 1 is a spoken-word radio station, and focuses on news a ...

and in the television show ''Divendres''. He also contributes to

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

. He supports

Catalan independence The Catalan independence movement (; ; ) is a Social movement, social and political movement with roots in Catalan nationalism that seeks the independence of Catalonia from Spain. While proposals, organizations and individuals advocating for Ca ...

and gives conferences around Catalonia with limited success, in name of the pro-independence association that he and other university teachers created for that purpose, (Col·lectiu Wilson). He proposes the application of the Paranoic-critical method to economic thought, and suggests that the "Critical-Paranoic School of Economic Thought" is opposed to Tobin taxes and

Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "h ...

, while supporting

Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...

and

chupacabras The chupacabra or ''chupacabras'' (, literally 'goat-sucker', from , 'sucks', and , 'goats') is a legendary creature, or cryptid, in the folklore of parts of the Americas. The name comes from the animal's purported vampirism the chupacabra is ...

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-Martin
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sala-I-Martin, Xavier 1962 births Living people Growth economists Economists from Catalonia Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Columbia University faculty Academic staff of Pompeu Fabra University American people of Catalan descent American libertarians Autonomous University of Barcelona alumni Academic staff of the Barcelona School of Economics