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Peter Lindert

Education

  • Ph.D., Cornell University, February 1967
  • Pre-doctoral guest scholar, Brookings Institution, 1965–1966
  • A.B., Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 1962.

About

Peter Lindert has expertise in economic history and public economics. He is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Research Focus

Professor Lindert studies the causes and effects of modern fiscal redistribution; and the history of inequality, political voice and economic growth.

Selected Publications

** Peter H. Lindert. 2021. Making Social Spending Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

** Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 2016. Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

** Jan Bakija, Lane Kenworthy, Peter Lindert, and Jeffrey Madrick, 2016. How Big Should Our Government Be? Berkeley: University of California Press.

** "Private Welfare and the Welfare State". In Larry Neal and Jeffrey. G. Williamson (eds.), The Cambridge History of Capitalism: Volume 2: The Spread of Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, Chapter 14, pp. 464-500.

** Peter H. Lindert and Steven Nafziger. 2014. “Russian Inequality on the Eve of Revolution”. Journal of Economic History 74, 3 (September): 767-798.

** Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson. "American Incomes before and after the Revolution". Journal of Economic History 73, 3 (September 2013): 725-765.

** Branko Milanovic, Jeffrey G. Williamson, and Peter H. Lindert. 2011. “Preindustrial Inequality.” 2011. Economic Journal 121 (March): 255-272.

** Sun Go and Peter H. Lindert. “The Uneven Rise of American Public Schools to 1850.” 2010. Journal of Economic History 70, 1 (March): 1-26.

** Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century. Two Volumes. Cambridge University Press, 2004.Translations to other languages: (a) Välfädsstatens expansion (in Swedish, 2005), (b) Spesa sociale e crescita (in Italian, 2007), (c) El ascenso del sector público (in Spanish, 2011).

Translations to other languages: (a) Välfädsstatens expansion (in Swedish, 2005), (b) Spesa sociale e crescita (in Italian, 2007), (c) El ascenso del sector público (in Spanish, 2011).

** Download the “cv” for a fuller list of scholarly works.

Awards
  • Co-recipient (with Jeffrey G. Williamson), the Economic History Association’s biennial Gallman-Parker Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Data Set Creation, September 2019.
  • The Economic History Association created and funded The Lindert-Williamson Prize for an outstanding book in global, African, Asian, Australian, and/or South American economic history, 2019.
  • 5th Angus Maddison Development Lecture, OECD, Paris, 3 October 2017.
  • Fellow, Cliometric Society, elected 2014
  • Several other keynote lectures since 2010.
  • Jonathan Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History, awarded by the Economic History Association, 2007.
  • Two book prizes for Growing Public: (1) The 2005 Allan Sharlin Prize, for the Best Book in Social Science History in 2004, awarded by the Social Science History Association; and (2) the Gyorgy Ranki Prize for the Best Book in European Economic History 2003 and 2004 (for Growing Public), awarded by the Economic History Association.
  • Sir John Hicks Lecture, Oxford, 13 May 2005.
  • President of the Economic History Association, 2001-2002.
  • UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement, 1999
  • UC Davis, Academic Senate, Distinguished Teaching Award, 1995
  • Inaugural Thomas Mayer Award for Distinguished Teaching in Economics, December 1994