Economic Growth

Economic Growth, by Sala-i-Martin anb Barro, has already become a classic. I can't think of anything better on the subject. Excellent book and carefully written!

Prior to having used this book, Macroeconomics was the bain of my life. A short sweater wearing Frenchman assigned it as the set text of his course and everything changed. The models are clear, lucid and stimulating. The exposition is first rate and the mix of theory with empirics is frankly breathtaking.I used to turn up 20 minutes late to macro lectures out of fear, now I wake up early asking myself "How can I make Peru grow faster". Is Economic Growth dull? Now, not so much as not at all...

This is an excelent book that covers very well "the old and new" Growth Theory". However it is a very hard book and be prepared to use everything you know about math and economics. Perfect book for graduation courses in growth theory. My only suggestion is to include a chapter about the efect of institutions on the economies.

This book is obviously the product of two great teachers! Everything is very clearly explained. There are some very nice details about conditional convergence across the US states. If you're looking to augement your economics knowledge after taking an intermediate macroeconomics class, short of actually taking one of these author's classes, this would definitely be the way.

You cannot avoid reading this book if you are going to do any advance undergraduate economics courses...... Well, not really, but if you read through chapters 1 to 5 and take time to workout the equations, you will surely find your knowledge in economics augment quite a bit: as long as you do not enrol into a PhD course, equations in economics texts can no longer unnerve you. Furthermore, according to my lecturer, this is the only introductory text on growth theory which covers New Growth Theory (chapter 6), i.e. models with imperfect competition and innovation .An evidence of this book's popularity: I saw a big pile of them in Blackwell's in Oxford (biggest bookstore in Britain)