Easterly, WilliamPennings, Steven2020-04-162020-04-162020-04https://hdl.handle.net/10986/33609Previous literature suggests that leaders matter for growth in general. This paper asks which leaders matter and develops a methodology to estimate the growth contribution of individual leaders and calculate its precision. The findings show that few leaders have statistically significant contributions; it is difficult to know who is good for growth and who is not. The paper also finds that the most intuitive estimate of a leader’s contribution—the average growth rate during tenure—is largely useless for measuring his or her true contribution. Consequently, many leaders with statistically significant growth effects are surprises. Moreover, leaders in non-democratic countries are no more likely to be statistically significant than leaders in democratic ones.CC BY 3.0 IGONATIONAL LEADERSECONOMIC GROWTHTEACHER VALUE-ADDEDPOLITICAL ECONOMYDEMOCRACYWorking PaperWorld Bank10.1596/1813-9450-9215