This paper examines the impact of national leadership on economic growth, using the deaths of leaders while in office as a source of exogenous variation in leadership. The authors find robust evidence that leaders matter for growth, with the effects being strongest in autocratic settings where there are fewer constraints on a leader's power. Leaders also appear to influence policy outcomes, particularly monetary policy. The results suggest that individual leaders can play crucial roles in shaping the growth of nations. The paper uses a dataset on leaders collected by the authors, identifying all national leaders worldwide from 1945 to 2000 and examining the circumstances under which they came to and left power. The analysis focuses on cases where the leader's rule ended at death due to natural causes or accidents, as these transitions are essentially random and determined by the leader's death rather than underlying economic conditions. The empirical results show that a one standard deviation change in leader quality leads to a growth change of 1.5 percentage points per year. The authors also examine how country-level characteristics affect the degree to which leaders matter and find that the impact of leaders is more pronounced in autocratic regimes and particularly in autocrats without constraints on their power. Additionally, the paper explores the policies that leaders affect, finding substantial effects on monetary policy but ambiguous evidence for fiscal and trade policy.This paper examines the impact of national leadership on economic growth, using the deaths of leaders while in office as a source of exogenous variation in leadership. The authors find robust evidence that leaders matter for growth, with the effects being strongest in autocratic settings where there are fewer constraints on a leader's power. Leaders also appear to influence policy outcomes, particularly monetary policy. The results suggest that individual leaders can play crucial roles in shaping the growth of nations. The paper uses a dataset on leaders collected by the authors, identifying all national leaders worldwide from 1945 to 2000 and examining the circumstances under which they came to and left power. The analysis focuses on cases where the leader's rule ended at death due to natural causes or accidents, as these transitions are essentially random and determined by the leader's death rather than underlying economic conditions. The empirical results show that a one standard deviation change in leader quality leads to a growth change of 1.5 percentage points per year. The authors also examine how country-level characteristics affect the degree to which leaders matter and find that the impact of leaders is more pronounced in autocratic regimes and particularly in autocrats without constraints on their power. Additionally, the paper explores the policies that leaders affect, finding substantial effects on monetary policy but ambiguous evidence for fiscal and trade policy.