Robert Gordon

Robert Gordon is the Stanley G. Harris Professor of Social Sciences at Northwestern University and one of the world's leading authorities on productivity and long-run economic growth. His major work "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War" (2016) argues that the period from 1870 to 1970 witnessed a unique, unrepeatable surge in productivity driven by fundamental innovations (electricity, indoor plumbing, automobiles, mass media) that raised living standards far more profoundly than digital technologies. Gordon is a prominent "secular stagnation" theorist who argues that structural headwinds — slowing population growth, rising inequality, high debt levels, declining education quality — will constrain U.S. growth for decades. His "headwinds" framework has influenced Federal Reserve thinking and monetary policy debate. His research on inflation measurement, particularly pointing out that official CPI statistics may understate improvements in living standards, and on the business cycle and price dynamics, spans decades of contribution to macroeconomics.