was a board member at FC Barcelona and treasurer of the club between 2004 and 2010. He was the president of the club during the electoral process of 2006. He is the founder of Umbele: A Future for Africa, a nonprofit organization that promotes economic development in Africa. He is a columnist for the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. He makes weekly appearances on the Catalan radio network RAC 1 and in the television show Divendres. He also contributes to CNN. He supports Catalan independence and gives conferences around Catalonia, in name of the pro-independence association that he and other university teachers created for that purpose, (Col·lectiu Wilson). Prizes He has been recognized with a Distinguished Teacher in Graduate Economics award three times at Columbia and Yale, with the 2004 King Juan Carlos I Prize (a biannual prize given to the best economist in Spain and Latin America), and the 2006 Lenfest Prize awarded to the best teacher at Columbia University. On 15 January 2017, Martin was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 14 in the list of 100 Most Influential Economists. Works Sala-i-Martin, Xavier; Pinkovsky, Maxim (March 2010). African poverty is falling ... much faster than you think!, NBER Working Paper Nr. 15775, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. References External links Personal home page of Xavier Sala-i-Martin Umbele 1962 births Living people Growth economists Economists from Catalonia Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Columbia University faculty Academic staff of Pompeu Fabra University American people of Catalan descent American libertarians Autonomous University of Barcelona alumni