Oded Galor

Oded Galor (born 1953) is an Israeli economist. He is currently Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University.

Work

Galor has made significant contributions to the study of income distribution and economic growth, the transition from stagnation to growth, and human evolution and economic development. He has made other significant contributions to the study of development traps, the demographic transition, and the advancement of the foundations of overlapping-generations models.

Galor has founded the field of Unified Growth Theory, which models the growth process over the entire history of the human species. He has also pioneered research on the interaction between human evolution and economic development. His latest research has been on the deep determinants of economic growth over the long run, primarily the effect of genetic diversity on income growth.

In 2010 Galor published a textbook on Discrete Dynamical Systems; and in the following year of 2011, authored a definitive textbook on Unified Growth Theory.

Career

Galor completed his BA (1978) and MA (1980) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his PhD (1984) at Columbia University. He served as a Chilewich Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University, and he is currently the Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Economic Growth, a co-director of the NBER research group on Income Distribution and Macroeconomics, and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Publications

• Genetic Diversity and the Origins of Cultural Fragmentation,” (with Q. Ashraf), American Economic Review, P&P 103(2), (May 2013).
• The Out of Africa Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity and Comparative Development,” (with Q. Ashraf), American Economic Review 103 (2013).
• Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch (with Q. Ashraf), American Economic Review 101 (2011).
• The 2008 Lawrence R. Klein Lecture-Comparative Economic Development: Insights From Unified Growth Theory, International Economic Review 51, 1–44, (2010).
• Inequality in Landownership, the Emergence of Human-Capital Promoting Institutions, and the Great Divergence (with O. Moav and D. Vollrath), Review of Economic Studies, 76, 143–179, (2009).
• Trading Population for Productivity, Review of Economic Studies, 75, 1143–1179, (2008).
• Discrete Dynamical Systems, 2007.
• Trade and the Great Divergence: The Family connection (with A. Mountford), American Economic Review 96, 299–303, (2006).
• Das Human Kapital: A Theory of the Demise of the Class Structure (with O. Moav), Review of Economic Studies, 73, 85–117, (2006).
• From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory, Handbook of Economic Growth, North Holland, (2005).
• From Physical to Human Capital Accumulation: Inequality in the Process of Development (with O. Moav), Review of Economic Studies, 71, 1001–1026, (2004).
• Natural Selection and the Origin of Economic Growth (with O. Moav), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117, 1133–1192, (2002).
• Ability-Biased Technological Change, Wage Inequality and Economic Growth (with O. Moav), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115, 469–498, (2000).
• Population, Technology, and Growth: From the Malthusian Regime to the Demographic Transition and Beyond, (with D. Weil), American Economic Review, 90, 806–828, (September 2000).
• From Malthusian Stagnation to Modern Growth (with D. Weil), American Economic Review, 89, 150–154 (1997).
• Technological Progress, Mobility, and Economic Growth (with D. Tsiddon), American Economic Review, 87, 363–382, (1997).
• The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth (with D. Weil), American Economic Review, 86, 374–387, (1996).
• Convergence? Inferences from Theoretical Models, Economic Journal, 106, 1056–1069, (1996).
• Income Distribution and Macroeconomics (with J. Zeira), Review of Economics Studies, 60, 35–52, (1993). JSTOR 2297811
• A Two-Sector Overlapping-Generations Model: A characterization of the Dynamical System, Econometrica, 60, 1351–1386, (1992).
• A Theory of Career Mobility, (with N. Sicherman), Journal of Political Economy, 98, 169–192, (1990).
• Existence, Uniqueness and Stability of Equilibrium in an Overlapping-Generations Model with Productive Capital, (with H. Ryder), Journal of Economic Theory, 49, 360–375, (1989).

Affiliations

• Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Economic Growth, 1995 –
• Co-director of the NBER research group on Income Distribution and Macroeconomics, 1995 –
• Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research, 1995 –
• Research Associate, NBER
• Research Fellow, IZA
• Associate Editor, Journal of Population Economics
• Member of the Editorial Board, Economics and Human Biology
• Member of the Editorial Board, Journal of Economic Inequality
• Member of the Advisory Board, Journal of Economic Research
• Co- Editor, Economics
• Associate Editor, Macroeconomic Dynamics