Robert Gordon

Robert "Bob" Gordon is an American economist and the Stanley G. Harris Professor of the Social Sciences at Northwestern University. He is an accomplished author and a macroeconomist with an interest in unemployment, inflation, and both the long-run and cyclical aspects of labor productivity.

Bob's most recent book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War, challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870-1970 cannot be repeated. Bob contends that the nations productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government.