Robert Merton Solow, born in 1924, is an American economist, pupil of Wassily Leontief, and Professor at the Massachusetts Technological Institute (MIT). We can identify Solow as a supporter of the Neo-Keynesian ideas and a great user of mathematics for supporting economic theories.
Most of his works and theories are based in the theory of economic growth, topic that he has studied and analysed thoroughly. In 1987 he was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, for his works on economic growth. Solow believes that technological progress is a critical factor in economic growth.
In the Solow–Swan growth model, he determines long term economic growth using productivity, capital accumulation, population growth and technological progress, as main variables. Solow sustains in his paper “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth”, 1956, that savings play a key role in economic growth, both as a positive factor, since it allows further investment, but also as a negative issue, since it can diminish the welfare of economic agents by diminishing consumption.