Robert J. Barro, Waggoner professor of economics and a prominent macroeconomic theorist, will leave Harvard for Columbia University this fall.

Reached in New York last night, Barro confirmed that he has accepted Columbia's offer, but declined further comment.

"He is a scholar of international eminence," said Richard Clarida, chair of Columbia's economics department and a professor of economics and international affairs.

"[Barro] is one of the three or four most important and influential individuals in macroeconomics in the last quarter century," he added.

At Columbia, Barro will have a joint tenure appointment in the economics department and business school, according to Clarida.

Harvard spokesperson Alex Huppe said as of yesterday afternoon he was uncertain if Barro had accepted Columbia's offer. Bell Professor of Economics Jeffrey G. Williamson, chair of Harvard's economics department, could not be reached for comment.

Barro, who specializes in monetary policy, public debt and economic growth, teaches graduate-level courses and Economics 1430: "Macroeconomics and Politics" with Professor of Economics and Government Alberto F. Alesina.

Barro is also a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, a Stanford-based think tank.

He has written numerous books, including Economic Growth (co-authored with Xavier Sala-I-Martin),Macroeconomics, Modern Business Cycle Theory and Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in A Free Society.

In February 1996, Barro was the Lionel Robbins Lecturer at the London School of Economics. His lectures, Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study, were published last year.

Clarida said Barro's offer awaits Columbia's standard university-wide review, but added that opposition to his appointment is unlikely.

Barro was appointed a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Academic Advisors in 1996. He has been a research associate at the Cambridge-based National Bureau of Economic Research since 1978.

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometrics Society and has served as an officer of the American Economic Association.

Barro has held the position of Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and the University of Rochester.

Barro received a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1965 and a Ph.D in economics from Harvard in 1970.