paper, it was important in integrating the role of money into neoclassical economics and into the synthesis of general equilibrium and macroeconomic models. In 1983, he applied the information asymmetry argument to the role of central banks and concluded that central banks, to have credibility in inflation fighting, must be locked into inflation targets that they cannot violate to reduce unemployment. In the 1970s, economist Arthur Okun developed the concept of the Misery Index, which Jimmy Carter publicized during his 1976 presidential campaign, and Ronald Reagan did the same in his 1980 presidential campaign. Numerous sources incorrectly credit Barro with this because of the similarity of name with his own "Barro Misery Index." Barro's version first appeared in a 1999 BusinessWeek article. His 1984 Macroeconomics textbook remains a standard for explaining the subject, and his 1995 book, with Columbia University economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin, on Economic Growth, is a widely cited and read graduate-level textbook on the theory and evidence concerning long-run economic growth. Barro's research in the 1990s was focused mainly on the theoretical and empirical determinants of growth: he gave fundamental contributions to the theory of endogenous growth, with particular attention to the links between innovation and public investment on one side and growth on the other side. He was a pioneer in the econometric analysis of the main factors associated with growth in the modern era. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988. Another often-cited work is a 1988 paper that he coauthored with Gary Becker, "A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility" published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which is influential in thinking about "infinite time horizon" modelling. Subsequently, Barro began investigating the influence of religion and popular culture on political economy by working with his wife, Rachel McCleary. Barro believes that the Keynesian multiplier is less than one. He believes that for every dollar the government borrows and spends, spending elsewhere in the economy falls by almost the same amount. Barro's work has been central to many of the economic and public policy debates of the last 30 years, including business cycle theory, growth theory, the neoclassical synthesis and public policy. Barro is doctor honoris causa from Universidad Francisco Marroquin. The Research Papers in Economics project ranked him as the fifth most influential economist in the world, as of March 2016, based on his academic contributions.