The United States economy is getting stronger, and deficits aren't necessarily a bad thing, Harvard professor and well-known economist Robert J. Barro told students, faculty, and friends gathered for the annual Tennenbaum Lecture in November.

While admittedly not the biggest fan of the Bush economic plan, Barro feels the growing strength of the U.S. economy is a positive long-term trend. Barrow is encouraged by the current economic numbers and stock market activity, and told the audience that the recent tax cuts and the war in Iraq are contributing to the economic boost. One reason is war spending — Barro noted that, historically, each dollar of military spending raises real gross domestic product by about 75 cents. As for the deficit, it's a good way to "starve the government of revenue and promote spending restraint," he says.

Unfortunately, job growth has been lower than expected during this recovery. Barro describes this pattern as "unusual," and suggests that we may be witnessing long-term change in the relationship between employment and the growth of the GDP.

Barro is the Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University, as well as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Nominated numerous times for the Nobel Prize in Economics, he is best known for his work on macroeconomics, monetary policy, and public debt, in particular his 1974 paper, "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?" It is perhaps the most commonly cited article on macroeconomics.

Barro has written extensively on macroeconomics. His books include Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study (MIT Press, 1997), Macroeconomics (MIT Press 1997), Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society (MIT Press, 1996), and as co-author, Economic Growth (McGraw Hill, 1995). He is associate editor of the Journal of Monetary Economics as well as the Journal of Economic Growth. In addition, he is a regular columnist for Business Week and a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal.

In 1996, Barro was appointed a member of the Academy Advisory Board of the Congressional Budget Office. He has been a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1978 and is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society. He has also served as president of the Western Economic Association and vice president of the American Economic Association.

The Tennenbaum Lecture endowment was established in 1977 by Michael E. Tennenbaum, BIE 1958, managing director of the Los-Angeles-based investment firm Tennenbaum & Co. The endowment allows ISyE to invite a prominent political economist to campus each year, with a goal to provide the Georgia Tech community a better appreciation of the relationship between political decisions and the economic consequences of these decisions for the U.S. economy.



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