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GDP real growth rates, 1990–1998 and 1990–2006, in selected countries.

Rate of change of Gross domestic product, world and OECD, since 1961

Economic growth caused the production-possibility frontier to shift outward.

Economic growth is the increase in the amount of the goods and services produced by an economy over time. It is conventionally measured as the percent rate of increase in real gross domestic product, or real GDP. Growth is usually calculated in real terms, i.e. inflation-adjusted terms, in order to net out the effect of inflation on the price of the goods and services produced. In economics, "economic growth" or "economic growth theory" typically refers to growth of potential output, i.e., production at "full employment," which is caused by growth in aggregate demand or observed output.

As an area of study, economic growth is generally distinguished from development economics. The former is primarily the study of how countries can advance their economies. The latter is the study of the economic aspects of the development process in low-income countries.

As economic growth is measured as the annual percent change of gross domestic product (GDP), it has all the advantages and drawbacks of that measure.

Definitions and history[link]

Economic growth versus the business cycle[link]

Economists distinguish between short-run economic changes in production and long-run economic growth. Short-run variation in economic growth is termed the business cycle. Briefly, the business cycle is made up of booms and busts in production that occur over a period of months or years. The most recent example of a business cycle was the global boom starting in approximately 2002 that ended with the bust of 2008–9. As discussed in the article on the business cycle, economists attribute the ups and downs in the business cycle to a number of causes including: overproduction of goods followed by large inventories that can't be readily sold, overexpansion of credit resulting in piling up of debt that inhibits purchasing; speculative bubbles, and shocks—like wars, political upheavals, and so on.

In contrast, the topic of economic growth is concerned with the long-run trend in production due to basic causes such as industrialization. The business cycle moves up and down, creating fluctuations in the long-run trend in economic growth.

Historical sources of economic growth[link]

Increases in productivity are the main factor responsible for economic growth, especially since the mid 19th century. Most of the economic growth since that time been due to reduced inputs of labor, materials, energy, capital and land per unit of economic output (less input per widget). The balance of growth has come from using more inputs overall because of the growth in output (more widgets), including new kinds of goods and services (innovations).^[1]

Opening up new territories was considered a growth factor in the past, being important since the late 19th century and in limited cases in the 20th century, such as the Amazon.

During colonial times, what ultimately mattered for economic growth were the institutions and systems of government imported through colonization. There is a clear reversal of fortune between the poor and wealthy countries, which is evident when comparing the method of colonialism in a region. Geography and endowments of natural resources are not the sole determinants of GDP. In fact, those that were blessed with good factor endowments experienced colonial extraction which only provided limited rapid growth; whereas, countries that were less fortunate in their original endowments experienced European settlement, relative equality, and demand for rule of law. These initially poor colonies end up developing an open franchise, equality, and broad public education, which helps them experience greater economic growth than the colonies that had exploited their economies of scale.

During the Industrial Revolution, mechanization began to replace hand methods in manufacturing and new processes were developed to make chemicals, iron, steel and other products.

Since the Industrial Revolution, a major factor of productivity was the substitution of energy from, human and animal labor, water and wind power to electric power and internal combustion. Since that replacement, the great expansion of total power was driven by continuous improvements in energy conversion efficiency.^[2] Other major historical sources of productivity were automation, transportation infrastructures (canals, railroads, and highways),^[3] new materials (steel) and power, which includes steam and internal combustion engines and electricity. Other productivity improvements included mechanized agriculture and scientific agriculture including chemical fertilizers and livestock and poultry management, and the Green Revolution. Interchangeable parts made with machine tools powered by electric motors evolved into mass production, which is universally used today.

Productivity lowered the cost of most items in terms of work time required to purchase. Real food prices fell due to improvements in transportation and trade, mechanized agriculture, fertilizers, scientific farming and the Green Revolution.

Great sources of productivity improvement in the late 19th century were the railroads, steam ships, horse-pulled reapers and combine harvesters, and steam-powered factories. The invention of processes for making cheap steel were important for many forms of mechanization and transportation. By the late 19th century, power and machinery were creating overproduction, which eventually caused a reduction of the hourly work week. Prices fell because less labor, materials, and energy were required to produce and transport goods; however, workers real pay rose, allowing workers to improve their diet and buy consumer goods and better housing.^[4]

Mass production of the 1920s created overproduction, which was arguably one of several causes of the Great Depression of the 1930s.^[5] Following the Great Depression, economic growth resumed, aided in part by demand for entirely new goods and services, such as household electricity, telephones, radio, television, automobiles, and household appliances, air conditioning, and commercial aviation (after 1950), creating enough new demand to stabilize the work week.^[6] Building of highway infrastructures also contributed to post World War II growth, as did capital investments in manufacturing and chemical industries. The post World War II economy also benefited from the discovery of vast amounts of oil around the world, particularly in the Middle East.

Economic growth in Western nations slowed after 1973, but growth in Asia has been strong since then, starting with Japan and spreading to Korea, China, the Indian subcontinent and other parts of Asia. In 1957 South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Ghana,^[7] and by 2008 it was 17 times as high as Ghana's.^[8] The Japanese economic growth has slowed down considerably since late 1980s.

Economic growth per capita[link]

Often, the concern about economic growth focuses on the desire to improve a country's standard of living—the level of goods and services that, on average, individuals purchase or otherwise gain access to. It should be noted that if population has grown along with economic production, increases in GDP do not necessarily result in an improvement in the standard of living. When the focus is on standard of living, economic growth is expressed on a per capita basis.

Economic growth per capita is primarily driven by improvements in productivity, also called economic efficiency. Increased productivity means producing more goods and services with the same inputs of labour, capital, energy, and/or materials. For example, labour and land productivity in agriculture were increased during the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution of the 1940s to 1970s introduced new grain hybrids, which increased yields around the world.

However, there is not necessarily a long term one-to-one relationship between improvements in productivity and improvements in average standard of living.^[9] Among other factors that might prevent a long-term improvement in standard of living despite economic growth is the potential for population growth matching or outstripping productivity improvements. When increased food supplies spur population growth rather than an improvement in the standard of living, people are said to be caught in the "Malthusian trap," named for Thomas Robert Malthus, the first observer to detail out this dilemma. There is considerable controversy, for example, as to whether the Green Revolution resulted in long-term improvements in the standard of living as it was accompanied by rapid population growth creating population sizes that may be unsustainable.^[10]

Economic growth can also be of interest without reference to per capita changes in standard of living. An example of this is the economic growth in England during the Industrial Revolution. Certainly, per capita increases in productivity occurred due to the replacement of hand labour by machines. However, economic growth during this period was in large part so dramatic because England's population simultaneously increased very rapidly (1700 A.D. – 1860 A.D.). The two factors together, more production per worker combined with many more workers, resulted in a sixfold increase in production between 1700 and 1860. Population growth alone accounted for most of this increase.^[11]

Measuring economic growth[link]

Economic growth is measured as a percentage change in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Product (GNP). These two measures, which are calculated slightly differently, total the amounts paid for the goods and services that a country produced. As an example of measuring economic growth, a country which creates $9,000,000,000 in goods and services in 2010 and then creates $9,090,000,000 in 2011, has a nominal economic growth rate of 1% for 2011.

In order to compare per capita economic growth among countries, the total sales of the countries to be compared may be quoted in a single currency. This requires converting the value of currencies of various countries into a selected currency, for example U.S. dollars. One way to do this conversion is to rely on exchange rates among the currencies, for example how many Mexican pesos buy a single U.S. dollar? Another approach is to use the purchasing power parity method. This method is based on how much consumers must pay for the same "basket of goods" in each country.

Inflation or deflation can make it difficult to measure economic growth. If GDP, for example, goes up in a country by 1% in a year, was this due solely to rising prices (inflation) or because more goods and services were produced and saved? To express real growth rather than changes in prices for the same goods, statistics on economic growth are often adjusted for inflation or deflation.

For example, a table may show changes in GDP in the period 1990 to 2000, as expressed in 1990 U.S. dollars. This means that the single currency being used is the U.S. dollar with the purchasing power it had in the U.S. in 1990. The table might mention that the figures are "inflation-adjusted" or real. If no adjustment were made for inflation, the table might make no mention of inflation-adjustment or might mention that the prices are nominal.

The power of annual growth[link]

Over long periods of time, even small rates of growth, like a 2% annual increase, will have large effects. For example, the United Kingdom experienced a 1.97% average annual increase in inflation-adjusted GDP between 1830 and 2008.^[12] In 1830, the GDP was 41,373 million pounds. It grew to 1,330,088 million pounds by 2008. (Figures are adjusted for inflation and stated in 2005 values for the pound.) A growth rate which averaged 1.97% over 178 years resulted in a 32-fold increase in GDP by 2008.

The large impact of a relatively small growth rate over a long period of time is due to the power of compounding (also see exponential growth). A growth rate of 2.5% per annum leads to a doubling of GDP within 29 years, whilst a growth rate of 8% per annum (an average exceeded by China between 2000 and 2010) leads to a doubling of GDP within 10 years. Thus, a small difference in economic growth rates between countries can result in very different standards of living for their populations if this small difference continues for many years.

[edit] Theories of economic growth

Classical growth theory[link]

Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations

The modern conception of economic growth began with the critique of Mercantilism, especially by the physiocrats and with the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as David Hume and Adam Smith, and the foundation of the discipline of modern political economy. The theory of the physiocrats was that productive capacity, itself, allowed for growth, and the improving and increasing capital to allow that capacity was "the wealth of nations". Whereas they stressed the importance of agriculture and saw urban industry as "sterile", Smith extended the notion that manufacturing was central to the entire economy.^[13]

David Ricardo argued that trade was a benefit to a country, because if one could buy a good more cheaply from abroad, it meant that there was more profitable work to be done here. This theory of "comparative advantage" would be the central basis for arguments in favor of free trade as an essential component of growth.^[14]

The neoclassical growth model[link]

The notion of growth as increased stocks of capital goods (means of production) was codified as the Solow-Swan Growth Model, which involved a series of equations which showed the relationship between labor-time, capital goods, output, and investment. According to this view, the role of technological change became crucial, even more important than the accumulation of capital. This model, developed by Robert Solow^[15] and Trevor Swan^[16] in the 1950s, was the first attempt to model long-run growth analytically. This model assumes that countries use their resources efficiently and that there are diminishing returns to capital and labor increases. From these two premises, the neoclassical model makes three important predictions. First, increasing capital relative to labor creates economic growth, since people can be more productive given more capital. Second, poor countries with less capital per person will grow faster because each investment in capital will produce a higher return than rich countries with ample capital. Third, because of diminishing returns to capital, economies will eventually reach a point at which any increase in capital will no longer create economic growth. This point is called a "steady state".

The model also notes that countries can overcome this steady state and continue growing by inventing new technology. In the long run, output per capital depends on the rate of saving, but the rate of output growth should be equal for any saving rate. In this model, the process by which countries continue growing despite the diminishing returns is "exogenous" and represents the creation of new technology that allows production with fewer resources. Technology improves, the steady state level of capital increases, and the country invests and grows. The data does not support some of this model's predictions, in particular, that all countries grow at the same rate in the long run, or that poorer countries should grow faster until they reach their steady state. Also, the data suggests the world has slowly increased its rate of growth.

However, modern economic research shows that the baseline version of the neoclassical model of economic growth is not supported by the evidence.^{[citation needed]}

Salter cycle[link]

According to the Salter cycle, economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs (labour, capital, material, energy, etc.) for a given amount of product (output).^[17] Lowered cost increases demand for goods and services, which also results in capital investment to increase capacity. New capacity is more efficient because of new technology, improved methods and economies of scale. This leads to further price reductions, which further increases demand, until markets become saturated due to diminishing marginal utility.^[18][19]

Endogenous growth theory[link]

World map of the 2008–2009 Global Competitiveness Index.

Growth theory advanced again with theories of economist Paul Romer and Robert Lucas, Jr. in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Unsatisfied with Solow's explanation, economists worked to "endogenize" technology in the 1980s. They developed the endogenous growth theory that includes a mathematical explanation of technological advancement.^[20][21] This model also incorporated a new concept of human capital, the skills and knowledge that make workers productive. Unlike physical capital, human capital has increasing rates of return. Therefore, overall there are constant returns to capital, and economies never reach a steady state. Growth does not slow as capital accumulates, but the rate of growth depends on the types of capital a country invests in. Research done in this area has focused on what increases human capital (e.g. education) or technological change (e.g. innovation).^[22]

John Joseph Puthenkalam's research aims at the process of economic growth theories that lead to economic development. After analyzing the existing capitalistic growth-development theoretical apparatus, he introduces the new model which integrates the variables of freedom, democracy and human rights into the existing models and argue that any future economic growth-development of any nation depends on this emerging model as we witness the third wave of unfolding demand for democracy in the Middle East. He develops the knowledge sector in growth theories with two new concepts of 'micro knowledge' and 'macro knowledge'. Micro knowledge is what an individual learns from school or from various existing knowledge and macro knowledge is the core philosophical thinking of a nation that all individuals inherently receive. How to combine both these knowledge would determine further growth that leads to economic development of developing nations. For further reading, please refer to "Integrating Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights into Theories of Economic Growth" (1998,2000&2009).

Ayres-Warr model[link]

The useful work growth theory, also called the Ayres-Warr model, addresses deficiencies in the neo-classical and endogenous growth models. It claims that physical and chemical work performed by energy, or more correctly exergy, has historically been a very important driver of economic growth.^{[2] [23]} Key support for this theory is a mathematical model showing that the efficiency of electrical generation is a good proxy for the Solow residual, or technological progress, that is, the portion of economic growth that is not attributable to capital or labor.^[24][25]

The useful work theory relates the slowing of economic growth to energy conversion efficiencies approaching thermodynamic limits, and cautions that declining resource quality could bring an end to economic growth in a few decades.

The useful work theory is part of a body of economic research and analysis sponsored by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and INSEAD and is cited by the International Energy Agency.^[26]

Theory of cognitive wealth (cognitive capitalism)[link]

The theory of "Cognitive capitalism" asserts that cognitive ability is the crucial factor which creates wealth in modern economies, and that the geographical factors which have been necessary in ancient societies are no longer so important. The average cognitive ability of a nation determines its wealth, each IQ point increase boosting a country's average GDP by $229. Of even more significance, the IQ of the brightest 5% of people in the nation (the cognitive elite) boosts GDP by $468 per IQ point. The cognitive elite support general efficiency, technological innovation, efficient administration, independent institutions, and economic freedom. Via these factors intelligence and knowledge stimulate growth leading to national wealth, which in turn may boost cognitive ability in a virtuous circle. The theory was developed by the two psychologists Heiner Rindermann and James Thompson.^[27] The theory is related to human capital theory.

Unified growth theory[link]

Unified growth theory was developed by Oded Galor and his co-authors to address the inability of endogenous growth theory to explain key empirical regularities in the growth processes of individual economies and the world economy as a whole. Endogenous growth theory was satisfied with accounting for empirical regularities in the growth process of developed economies over the last hundred years. As a consequence, it was not able to explain the qualitatively different empirical regularities that characterized the growth process over longer time horizons in both developed and less developed economies. Unified growth theories are endogenous growth theories that are consistent with the entire process of development, and in particular the transition from the epoch of Malthusian stagnation that had characterized most of the process of development to the contemporary era of sustained economic growth.^[28]

The big push[link]

Theories of economic growth, the mechanisms that let it take place and its main determinants are abound. One popular theory in the 1940s, for example, was that of the "Big Push" which suggested that countries needed to jump from one stage of development to another through a virtuous cycle, in which large investments in infrastructure and education coupled with private investments would move the economy to a more productive stage, breaking free from economic paradigms appropriate to a lower productivity stage.^[29]

Institutions and growth[link]

According to Acemoğlu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson, the positive correlation between high income and cold climate is a by-product of history. Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies, with different associated institutions. In places where these colonizers faced high mortality rates (e.g., due to the presence of tropical diseases), they could not settle permanently, and they were thus more likely to establish extractive institutions, which persisted after independence; in places where they could settle permanently (e.g. those with temperate climates), they established institutions with this objective in mind and modeled them after those in their European homelands. In these 'neo-Europes' better institutions in turn produced better development outcomes. Thus, although other economists focus on the identity or type of legal system of the colonizers to explain institutions, these authors look at the environmental conditions in the colonies to explain institutions. For instance, former colonies have inherited corrupt governments and geo-political boundaries (set by the colonizers) that are not properly placed regarding the geographical locations of different ethnic groups, creating internal disputes and conflicts which in turn hinder development. In another example, societies that emerged in colonies without solid native populations established better property rights and incentives for long-term investment than those where native populations were large.^[30]

Human capital and growth[link]

One ubiquitous element of both theoretical and empirical analyses of economic growth is the role of human capital. The skills of the population enter into both neoclassical and endogenous growth models.^[31] The most commonly used measure of human capital is the level of school attainment in a country, building upon the data development of Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee.^[32] This measure of human capital, however, requires the strong assumption that what is learned in a year of schooling is the same across all countries. It also presumes that human capital is only developed in formal schooling, contrary to the extensive evidence that families, neighborhoods, peers, and health also contribute to the development of human capital. In order to measure human capital more accurately, Eric Hanushek and Dennis Kimko introduced measures of mathematics and science skills from international assessments into growth analysis.^[33] They found that quality of human capital was very significantly related to economic growth. This approach has been extended by a variety of authors, and the evidence indicates that economic growth is very closely related to the cognitive skills of the population.^[34]

Inequality and economic growth[link]

The effect of inequality on economic growth[link]

The classical theory[link]

Inequality has a positive effect on economic development. The marginal propensity to save increases with wealth and inequality increases savings, capital accumulation, and economic growth.^[35]

The neoclassical theory[link]

The neoclassical theory ignores the relevance of income distribution for macroeconomic analysis. It interprets the observed relationship between inequality and economic growth as a reflection of the growth process on the distribution of income.333

The modern theory[link]

The modern theory suggests that income distribution, plays an important role in the determination of aggregate economic activity and economic growth.

The credit market imperfection approach, developed by Galor and Zeira (1993), demonstrates that inequality in the presence of credit market imperfections has a long lasting detrimental effect on human capital formation and economic development.^[36]

The political economy approach, developed by Alesina and Rodrik (1994) and Persson and Tabellini (1994), suggests that inequality is harmful for economic development because inequality generates a pressure to adopt redistributive policies that have an adverse effect on investment and economic growth.^[37]

Evidence[link]

Perotti (1996) examines of the channels through which inequality may affect economic growth. He shows that in accordance with the credit market imperfection approach, inequality is associated with lower level of human capital formation and higher level of fertility, while lower level of human capital is associated with lower growth and lower levels of economic growth. In contrast, his examination of the political economy channel refutes the political economy mechanism. He demonstrates that inequality is associated with lower levels of taxation, while lower levels of taxation, contrary to the theories, are associated with lower level of economic growth.^[38]

The effect of growth on inequality[link]

Economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin argues that global income inequality is diminishing,^[39] and the World Bank argues that the rapid reduction in global poverty is in large part due to economic growth.^[40] The decline in poverty has been the slowest where growth performance has been the worst (i.e. in Africa).^[41]

Quality of life[link]

Happiness has been shown to increase with a higher GDP per capita, at least up to a level of $15,000 per person.^[42]

Economic growth has the indirect potential to alleviate poverty, as a result of a simultaneous increase in employment opportunities and increase labour productivity.^[43] A study by researchers at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) of 24 countries that experienced growth found that in 18 cases, poverty was alleviated.^[43] However, employment is no guarantee of escaping poverty, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that as many as 40% of workers as poor, not earning enough to keep their families above the $2 a day poverty line.^[43] For instance, in India most of the chronically poor are wage earners in formal employment, because their jobs are insecure and low paid and offer no chance to accumulate wealth to avoid risks.^[43] This appears to be the result of a negative relationship between employment creation and increased productivity, when a simultaneous positive increase is required to reduced poverty. According to the UNRISD, increasing labour productivity appears to have a negative impact on job creation: in the 1960s, a 1% increase in output per worker was associated with a reduction in employment growth of 0.07%, by the first decade of this century the same productivity increase implies reduced employment growth by 0.54%.^[43]

Increases in employment without increases in productivity leads to a rise in the number of "working poor", which is why some experts are now promoting the creation of "quality" and not "quantity" in labour market policies.^[43] This approach does highlight how higher productivity has helped reduce poverty in East Asia, but the negative impact is beginning to show.^[43] In Viet Nam, for example, employment growth has slowed while productivity growth has continued.^[43] Furthermore, productivity increases do not always lead to increased wages, as can be seen in the United States, where the gap between productivity and wages has been rising since the 1980s.^[43] The ODI study showed that other sectors were just as important in reducing unemployment, as manufacturing.^[43] The services sector is most effective at translating productivity growth into employment growth. Agriculture provides a safety net for jobs and economic buffer when other sectors are struggling.^[43] This study suggests a more nuanced understanding of economic growth and quality of life and poverty alleviation.

Opportunities, education, health, security and a healthy environment contribute to the quality of life. Public policy plays a great role happiness, as Petra Pinzler points out in D+C Development and Cooperation.

Negative effects of economic growth[link]

A number of critical arguments have been raised against economic growth.^[44]

It may be that economic growth improves the quality of life up to a point, after which it doesn't improve the quality of life, but rather obstructs sustainable living.^[45] Historically, sustained growth has reached its limits (and turned to catastrophic decline) when perturbations to the environmental system last long enough to destabilise the bases of a culture.^[45]

Resource depletion[link]

Many earlier predictions of resource depletion, such as Thomas Malthus' 1798 predictions about approaching famines in Europe, The Population Bomb (1968),^[46][47][48] Limits to Growth (1972),^[46][47][48] and the Simon–Ehrlich wager (1980) ^[49] did not materialize, nor has diminished production of most resources occurred so far, one reason being that advancements in technology and science have allowed some previously unavailable resources to be produced.^[49] In some cases, substitution of more abundant materials, such as plastics for cast metals, lowered growth of usage for some metals. In the case of the limited resource of land, famine was relieved firstly by the revolution in transportation caused by railroads and steam ships, and later by the Green Revolution and chemical fertilizers, especially the Haber process for ammonia synthesis.^[50][51]

M. King Hubbert's prediction of world petroleum production rates. Virtually all economic sectors rely heavily on petroleum.

In the case of minerals, lower grades of mineral resources are being extracted, requiring higher inputs of capital and energy for both extraction and processing.^[52] An example is natural gas from shale and other low permeability rock, which can be developed with much higher inputs of energy, capital, and materials than conventional gas in previous decades. Another example is offshore oil and gas, which has exponentially increasing cost as water depth increases.

Some "Malthusians", such as William R. Catton, Jr., author of the 1980 book "Overshoot," are skeptical of these various advancements in technology which make available previously inaccessible or lower grade resources. The counter-argument is that such advances as well as increases in efficiency merely accelerate the drawing down of finite resources. Catton has referred to the contemporary increases in rates of resource extraction as "stealing ravenously from the future."^[53] The apparent and temporary "increase" of resource extraction with the use of new technology leads to the popular perception that resources are infinite or can be substituted without limit, but this perception fails to consider that ultimately, even lower quality resources are finite and become uneconomic to extract when the ore quality is too low. Because of cultural lag, the perception of infinite resources and substitutes may linger on for generations, and may not change, since the inevitable resource bankruptcy is passed on to posterity. Catton has called the faith in technology a form of "cargoism," which takes its meaning from various "Cargo Cults" in Melanesia and Micronesia. Furthermore, Joseph Tainter, anthropologist, historian and author of the book "The Collapse of Complex Societies," has pointed out that each new addition of complexity to technology can only be sustained if there is a good enough return to justify the technology, and that over time, increases in complexity have improved productivity at an ever decreasing rate. As an example, in the early 1900s when much of the world's oil was untapped, it was sufficient to drill a few metres into the ground and install inexpensive rigs to extract oil at rapid rates. At the beginning of the 21st century, in order to achieve the same flowrates or less, oilfields must be drilled much deeper and managed with sophisticated techniques and equipment costing many hundreds of millions of dollars. If such trends continue, there may arrive a time when it becomes uneconomic to increase complexity in order to access lower grade resources with no net improvement in productivity.

Environmental impact[link]

Forest in Indonesia being cut for palm oil plantation.

Some critics^[who?] argue that a narrow view of economic growth, combined with globalization, is creating a scenario where we could see a systemic collapse of our planet's natural resources.^[54] Other critics draw on archaeology to cite examples of cultures they claim have disappeared because they grew beyond the ability of their ecosystems to support them.^[55] Concerns about possible negative effects of growth on the environment and society led some to advocate lower levels of growth, from which comes the ideas of uneconomic growth and de-growth, and Green parties which argue that economies are part of a global society and a global ecology and cannot outstrip their natural growth without damaging them.

Those more optimistic about the environmental impacts of growth believe that, although localized environmental effects may occur, large scale ecological effects are minor. The argument as stated by commentators Julian Lincoln Simon states that if these global-scale ecological effects exist, human ingenuity will find ways of adapting to them.^[56]

Equitable growth[link]

While acknowledging the central role economic growth can potentially play in human development, poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, it is becoming widely understood amongst the development community that special efforts must be made to ensure poorer sections of society are able to participate in economic growth.^[57] For instance, with low inequality a country with a growth rate of 2% per head and 40% of its population living in poverty, can halve poverty in ten years, but a country with high inequality would take nearly 60 years to achieve the same reduction.^[58] In the words of the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon:

"While economic growth is necessary, it is not sufficient for progress on reducing poverty."^[57]

Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute compares situations such as in Uganda, where during a period of annual growth of 2.5% between 2000 and 2003, the percentage of people living in poverty actually increased by 3.8%.^[57] The ODI thus emphasises the need to ensure social protection is extended to allow universal access and that policies are introduced to encourage the private sector to create new jobs as the economy grows (as opposed to jobless growth) and seek to employ people from disadvantaged groups.^[57]

Implications of global warming[link]

see Economics of global warming

Up to the present there are close correlations of economic growth with carbon dioxide emissions across nations, although there is also a considerable divergence in carbon intensity (carbon emissions per GDP).^[59] The Stern Review notes that the prediction that "under business as usual, global emissions will be sufficient to propel greenhouse gas concentrations to over 550ppm CO₂e by 2050 and over 650–700ppm by the end of this century is robust to a wide range of changes in model assumptions". The scientific consensus is that planetary ecosystem functioning without incurring dangerous risks requires stabilization at 450–550 ppm.^[60]

As a consequence, growth-oriented environmental economists propose massive government intervention into switching sources of energy production, favouring wind, solar, hydroelectric, and nuclear. This would largely confine use of fossil fuels to either domestic cooking needs (such as for kerosene burners) or where carbon capture and storage technology can be cost-effective and reliable.^[61] The Stern Review, published by the United Kingdom Government in 2006, concluded that an investment of 1% of GDP would be sufficient to avoid the worst effects of climate change, and that failure to do so could risk climate-related costs equal to 20% of GDP. Because carbon capture and storage is as yet widely unproven, and its long term effectiveness (such as in containing carbon dioxide 'leaks') unknown, and because of current costs of alternative fuels, these policy responses largely rest on faith of technological change.

On the other hand, Nigel Lawson claimed that people in a hundred years' time would be "seven times as well off as we are today", therefore it is not reasonable to impose sacrifices on the "much poorer present generation".^[62]

Prominent growth economists[link]

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Joseph Halevi, David Laibman and Edward J. Nell (eds.) (1992) Beyond the Steady State: Essays in the Revival of Growth Theory, edited with , London, UK:
• Barro, Robert J. (1997) Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
• Argyrous, G., Forstater, M and Mongiovi, G. (eds.) (2004) Growth, Distribution, And Effective Demand: Essays in Honor of Edward J. Nell. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
• Galor, O. (2005) From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory. Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier.
• Jones, Charles I. (2002) Introduction to Economic Growth 2nd ed. W. W. Norton & Company: New York, N.Y.
• Kirzner, Israel. (1973) Competition and Entrepreneurship
• Puthenkalam, John Joseph, "Integrating Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights into Theories of Economic Growth", Manila, 1998.
• Lucas, Robert E., Jr. (2003) The Industrial Revolution: Past and Future, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Annual Report online edition
• Mises, Ludwig E. (1949) Human Action 1998 reprint by the Mises Institute
• Schumpeter, Jospeph A. (1912) The Theory of Economic Development 1982 reprint, Transaction Publishers
• Weil, David N. (2008) Economic Growth 2nd ed. Addison Wesley.
• Vladimir N. Pokrovskii (2011) Econodynamics. The Theory of Social Production, Springer, Berlin.

External links[link]

Articles and lectures[link]

• Economic Growth by Paul Romer, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
• "Economic growth." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 17 November 2007.
• Beyond Classical and Keynesian Macroeconomic Policy. Paul Romer's plain-English explanation of endogenous growth theory.
• Does Economic Growth increase Living Standards?
• Who's afraid of economic growth? Essay by Daniel Ben-Ami on the contemporary anxiety about economic growth.
• CEPR Economics Seminar Series Two seminars on the importance of growth with economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot
• On global economic history by Jan Luiten van Zanden. Explores the idea of the inevitability of the Industrial Revolution.
• The Economist Has No Clothes – essay by Robert Nadeau in Scientific American on the basic assumptions behind current economic theory
• World Growth Institute. An organization dedicated to helping the developing world realize its full potential via economic growth.
• Economics for Everyone- Evaluating Economic Growth
• Understanding the world today Multiple reports on economic growth

Data[link]

• Historical data - since 1954 - comparing the US GDP growth rate versus the US Fed Funds Rate
• Angus Maddison's Historical Dataseries -Series for almost all countries on GDP, Population and GDP per capita from the year 0 up to 2003
• OECD Economic growth statistics
• multinational data sets easy to use data set showing gdp, per capita and population, by country and region, 1970 to 2008. Updated regularly.

Bill Gates
Gates at the World Economic Forum in 2007
Born	William Henry Gates III (1955-10-28) October 28, 1955 (age 56) Seattle, Washington, United States
Residence	Medina, Washington, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard University (dropped out)
Occupation	Chairman of Microsoft Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO of Cascade Investment Chairman of Corbis
Years active	1975–present
Net worth	US$ 61 billion (2012)[1]
Board member of	Berkshire Hathaway
Religion	None (Agnostic[2][3])
Spouse	Melinda Gates (m. 1994) «start: (1994)»"Marriage: Melinda Gates to Bill Gates" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Bill_Gates)
Children	3
Parents	William H. Gates, Sr. Mary Maxwell Gates
Signature
Website
Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington)^[4] is an American business magnate, computer programmer and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive officer (CEO) and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people^[5] and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third;^[6] in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person.^[7][8] During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock.^[9] He has also authored or co-authored several books.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.^[10][11] In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.^[12]

Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Early life[link]

Bill Gates was photographed by the Albuquerque, New Mexico police in 1977 after a traffic violation (details of which have been lost over time).

Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His parents are of English, German, and Scots-Irish descent.^[13][14] His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way. Gates's maternal grandfather was J. W. Maxwell, a national bank president. Gates has one elder sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. He was the fourth of his name in his family, but was known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had the "II" suffix.^[15] Early on in his life, Gates's parents had a law career in mind for him.^[16] When Gates was young, his family regularly attended a Congregational church.^[17][18][19]

At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school.^[20] When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.^[21] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly. When he reflected back on that moment, he said, "There was just something neat about the machine."^[22] After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.^[23]

At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via Teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when the company went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences, Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success."^[22] At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.^[24] In early 1973, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the U.S. House of Representatives.^[25]

Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT^[26] and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.^[27] While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer, who later succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft.

The Poker Room in Currier House at Harvard University, in which Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer formed Microsoft

In his sophomore year, Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems^[28] presented in a combinatorics class by Harry Lewis, one of his professors. Gates's solution held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years;^[28][29] its successor is faster by only one percent.^[28] His solution was later formalized in a published paper in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou.^[30]

Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard^[31] and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen, and he joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.^[32] The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.^[33] He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.^[31]

Microsoft[link]

BASIC[link]

MITS Altair 8800 Computer with 8-inch (200 mm) floppy disk system

After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform.^[34] In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration, held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC. Paul Allen was hired into MITS,^[35] and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with Allen at MITS in Albuquerque in November 1975. They named their partnership "Micro-Soft" and had their first office located in Albuquerque.^[35] Within a year, the hyphen was dropped, and on November 26, 1976, the trade name "Microsoft" was registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.^[35] Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies.

Microsoft's BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter saying that MITS could not continue to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software without payment.^[36] This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.^[35] The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979, after the former rejected his loan application.^[34]

During Microsoft's early years, all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business. Gates oversaw the business details, but continued to write code as well. In the first five years, Gates personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit.^[37]

IBM partnership[link]

IBM approached Microsoft in July 1980 regarding its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC.^[38] The computer company first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system, Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M operating system.^[39] IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system. A few weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full owner, of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC-DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000.^[40]

Gates did not offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system, because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system.^[40] They did, and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry.^[41] Despite IBM's name on the operating system the press quickly identified Microsoft as being very influential on the new computer, with PC Magazine asking if Gates were "The Man Behind The Machine?"^[38] He oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates President of Microsoft and the Chairman of the Board.^[34]

Windows[link]

Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, and in August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, mounting creative differences caused the partnership to deteriorate. It ended in 1991, when Gates led Microsoft to develop a version of OS/2 independently from IBM.^[42]

Management style[link]

From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy. He aggressively broadened the company's range of products, and wherever Microsoft achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it. He gained a reputation for being distant to others; as early as 1981 an industry executive complained in public that "Gates is notorious for not being reachable by phone and for not returning phone calls."^[43]

As an executive, Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk.^[44][45] He often interrupted presentations with such comments as, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"^[46] and, "Why don't you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps?"^[47] The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until, hopefully, Gates was fully convinced.^[46] When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend."^[48][49][50]

Gates's role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the early years, particularly on the company's programming language products. He has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100,^[51] but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the company's products.^[49] On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy.^[52]

Antitrust litigation[link]

Bill Gates giving his deposition at Microsoft on August 27, 1998

Many decisions that led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft's business practices have had Gates's approval. In the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case, Gates gave deposition testimony that several journalists characterized as evasive. He argued with examiner David Boies over the contextual meaning of words such as, "compete", "concerned", and "we".^[53] BusinessWeek reported:

Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying 'I don't recall,' so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-mail that Gates both sent and received.^[54]

Gates later said he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions. As to his demeanor during the deposition, he said, "Did I fence with Boies? ... I plead guilty. Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me: rudeness to Boies in the first degree."^[55] Despite Gates's denials, the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization and tying, and blocking competition, both in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.^[55]

Appearance in ads[link]

Gates appeared in a series of ads to promote Microsoft in 2008. The first commercial, co-starring Jerry Seinfeld, is a 90-second talk between strangers as Seinfeld walks up on a discount shoe store (Shoe Circus) in a mall and notices Gates buying shoes inside. The salesman is trying to sell Mr. Gates shoes that are a size too big. As Gates is buying the shoes, he holds up his discount card, which uses a slightly altered version of his own mugshot of his arrest in New Mexico in 1977 for a traffic violation.^[56] As they are walking out of the mall, Seinfeld asks Gates if he has melded his mind to other developers, after getting a yes, he then asks if they are working on a way to make computers edible, again getting a yes. Some say that this is an homage to Seinfeld's own show about "nothing" (Seinfeld).^[57] In a second commercial in the series, Gates and Seinfeld are at the home of an average family trying to fit in with normal people.

Post-Microsoft[link]

Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft (where he remains Chairman^[58]), Gates continues his philanthropy and, among other projects, purchased the video rights to the Messenger Lectures series called The Character of Physical Law, given at Cornell University by Richard Feynman in 1964 and recorded by the BBC. The videos are available online to the public at Microsoft's Project Tuva.^[59][60]

In April 2010, Gates was invited to visit and speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he asked the students to take on the hard problems of the world in their futures.^[61][62]

Personal life[link]

Bill and Melinda Gates, June 2009

Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994. They have two daughters, Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996) and Phoebe Adele (2002), and one son, Rory John (1999).

The Gates's home is an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina. According to King County public records, as of 2006 the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property tax is $991,000.

His 66,000 sq ft (6,100 m²) estate has a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music system, as well as a 2,500 sq ft (230 m²) gym and a 1,000 sq ft (93 m²) dining room.^[63]

Also among Gates's private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.^[64] Gates is also known as an avid reader, and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation from The Great Gatsby.^[65] He also enjoys playing bridge, tennis, and golf.^[66][67]

Gates was number one on the Forbes 400 list from 1993 through to 2007 and number one on Forbes list of The World's Richest People from 1995 to 2007 and 2009. In 1999, Gates's wealth briefly surpassed $101 billion, causing the media to call him a "centibillionaire".^[68] Since 2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations. In a May 2006 interview, Gates commented that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought.^[69] Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of $616,667 and $350,000 bonus totalling $966,667.^[70] He founded Corbis, a digital imaging company, in 1989. In 2004 he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett.^[71] In March 2010 Bill Gates was bumped down to the second wealthiest man behind Carlos Slim.

Philanthropy[link]

Gates (second from right) with Bono, Queen Rania of Jordan, Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria and other participants in a 'Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals' during the Annual Meeting 2008 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Gates began to appreciate the expectations others had of him when public opinion mounted suggesting that he could give more of his wealth to charity. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William H. Gates Foundation. In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations into one to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world.^[72] The foundation allows benefactors access to information regarding how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust.^[73][74] The generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller has been credited as a major influence. Gates and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus, namely those global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.^[75] As of 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity.^[76] They plan to eventually give 95% of their wealth to charity.^[77]

The foundation was at the same time criticized because it invests assets that it has not yet distributed with the exclusive goal of maximizing return on investment. As a result, its investments include companies that have been charged with worsening poverty in the same developing countries where the Foundation is attempting to relieve poverty. These include companies that pollute heavily, and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing world.^[78] In response to press criticism, the foundation announced in 2007 a review of its investments, to assess social responsibility.^[79] It subsequently canceled the review and stood by its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices.^[80] The Gates Millennium Scholars program has been criticized for its exclusion of Caucasian students.^[81][82]

Gates's wife urged people to learn a lesson from the philanthropic efforts of the Salwen family, which had sold its home and given away half of its value, as detailed in The Power of Half.^[83] Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what the family had done, and on December 9, 2010, Gates, investor Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's CEO) signed a promise they called the "Gates-Buffet Giving Pledge", in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time.^[84][85][86]

Recognition[link]

In 1987, Gates was officially declared a billionaire in the pages of Forbes' 400 Richest People in America issue, just days before his 32nd birthday. As the world's youngest self-made billionaire, he was worth $1.25 billion, over $900 million more than he'd been worth the year before, when he'd debuted on the list.^[87]

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference (D5) in 2007

Time magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Time also collectively named Gates, his wife Melinda and U2's lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their humanitarian efforts.^[88] In 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of "Heroes of our time".^[89] Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list in 1999, named CEO of the year by Chief Executive Officers magazine in 1994, ranked number one in the "Top 50 Cyber Elite" by Time in 1998, ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the "Top 100 influential people in media" in 2001.^[90]

In 1994, he was honoured as the twentieth Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands, in 2000;^[91] the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002; invited in 2003 to deliver the keynote address^[92] of the Golden Jubilee of the Indian Institute of Technology,held in San Jose, California;^[93] Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2005; Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in April 2007;^[94] Harvard University in June 2007;^[95] the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008,^[96] and Cambridge University in June 2009.^[97] He was also made an honorary trustee of Peking University in 2007.^[98] Gates was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005,^[99] in addition to having entomologists name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.^[100]

In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico, and specifically in the program "Un país de lectores".^[101] In October 2009, it was announced that Gates will be awarded the 2010 Bower Award for Business Leadership of The Franklin Institute for his achievements in business and for his philanthropic work. In 2010 he was honored with the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America, its highest award for adults, for his service to youth.^[102]

In 2011, Bill Gates was ranked as the fifth most powerful person in the world, according to rankings by Forbes magazine.^[103]

Investments[link]

• Cascade Investments LLC, a private investment and holding company, incorporated in United States, is controlled by Bill Gates, and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland, Washington.
• bgC3, a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates.
• Corbis, a digital image licensing and rights services company.
• TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design company.

Books and films[link]

To date, Bill Gates has authored two books. The Road Ahead, written with Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rinearson, was published in November 1995, and it summarized the implications of the personal computing revolution and described a future profoundly changed by the arrival of a global information superhighway. Business @ the Speed of Thought was published in 1999, and discusses how business and technology are integrated, and shows how digital infrastructures and information networks can help getting an edge on the competition.

Gates has appeared in a number of documentaries, including the 2010 documentary film Waiting for "Superman",^[104] and the BBC documentary series The Virtual Revolution.

Gates was prominently featured in Pirates of Silicon Valley, a 1999 film which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft from the early 1970s to 1997. He was portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Microsoft portal

• List of billionaires (also see List of college dropout billionaires and List of wealthiest non-inflated historical figures)
• Paul Allen – Microsoft's co-founder, friend, and fellow billionaire
• Gary Kildall (October 25, 2004). "The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905109_mz063.htm. Retrieved June 9, 2010. 

Books[link]

• Fridson, Martin (2001). How to Be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-41617-7. 
• Gates, Bill (1996). The Road Ahead. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-026040-4. 
• Lesinski, Jeanne M. (2006). Bill Gates (Biography (a & E)). A&E Television Networks. ISBN 0-8225-7027-0. 
• Manes, Stephen (1994). Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest Man in America. Touchstone Pictures. ISBN 0-671-88074-8. 
• Wallace, James (1993). Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-471-56886-4. 

References[link]