Xavier Sala-i-Martin is a renowned Catalan-American economist and a world leading expert on innovation, competitiveness and economic growth. He is a Professor of Economics at Columbia University in New York and the Chief Economic Advisor to the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. He is also a member of the Counseling Board of Telefonica Catalunya, an associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a consultant to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He has taught at Yale University, Harvard University, UniversitatPompeuFabra and Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. He received his undergraduate degree from the Autonomous University in Barcelona and completed his master’s degree in International Finance and PHD in Economics from Harvard University in 1990.

Xavier Sala-i-Martin is the author of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), published annually in the Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic Forum, which measures the competitiveness of 142 countries in the world and recommends strategies to the decision makers. It’s the most closely followed index in the world and businesses and countries use it to evaluate current and future strategic policies of their countries and corporations.

He has received numerous awards including the King Juan Carlos I prize awarded by the Bank of Spain(the award for the best economist in Spain and Latin America), and the Arrow Prize awarded by the International Health Economics Organization to the best Health Economist in the World.He is a leading economist whose works also include the topics of monetary economics,health and economics, social security and development in Africa. Professor Sala-i-Martin is the author of the economic growth textbook “Apuntes de CrecimientoEconomico” and the co-author of the textbook “Economic Growth”, which was translated into many languages.