Robert Solow (1924–2023)
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Who They Were
Robert Solow (1924-2023) was an American economist based for most of his career at MIT, where he was a central figure in postwar macroeconomics. He is best known for his work on economic growth, which reshaped how economists understand what makes economies expand over the long run. Building formal models in the 1950s, he showed how the accumulation of capital, the growth of the labour force and technological change combine to determine output over time. In 1987 he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to the theory of economic growth. A clear and influential expositor, he also engaged widely in public debates about macroeconomic policy and the labour market, and he trained a number of economists who went on to prominence in the field.
Key Contributions
The Solow growth model demonstrated that capital accumulation alone runs into diminishing returns: as an economy adds more capital per worker, each additional unit yields less extra output, so saving and investing more cannot by itself sustain rising living standards indefinitely. The lasting implication is that long-run growth in output per person must come mainly from technological progress, which shifts the economy's productive capacity outward. In the language of introductory macroeconomics, capital accumulation and technology shift long-run aggregate supply. Solow's framework, together with his empirical accounting for the sources of growth, established that a large share of measured growth could not be explained by more capital and labour alone, the so-called Solow residual, attributed to technical change. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1987.
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American economist and 1987 Nobel laureate whose growth model showed that long-run growth ultimately depends on technological progress. Play the games that feature Robert Solow: