Texas Tech University

Dr. Peter H. Lindert

Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of California - Davis

Peter H. Lindert (A.B., Princeton; Ph.D., Cornell) is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California – Davis and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. His books and journal articles have dealt with modern inequality trends, the welfare state, human fertility, international debt crisis, international trade competition, land quality, farm policy, soil history, and other topics. He has explored the economic history of present-day policy concerns and public finance debates, particularly over education finance.

His latest book is titled Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century,a two-volume book published by Cambridge University Press in which he argues that, contrary to the intuition of many economists and the ideology of many politicians, social spending has contributed to, rather than inhibited, economic growth. The book has been covered in the Economist, Newsweek, the New York Times and other media, and has received both the Allan Sharlin Award for Best Book in Social Science History and the Gyorgy Ranki Prize for best book in European Economic History.

Peter H. Lindert served as President of the Economic History Association and as Co-Editor of its journal. His textbooks in international economics have been translated into at least eight other languages, and he has previously taught at the University of Essex, Harvard University, Moscow State University, and the University of Wisconsin. (2004).

Dr. Lindert's interview was held at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX, on April 8, 2013.