Evening Lecture with Paul Romer, World Leading Economist and Professor of Economics at Stanford University
Monday 1st February 6:00pm, Millbank

Paul Romer is one of the world’s leading economists.  His work has revolutionised the study of economic growth.  He was named one of America’s 25 most influential people by Time Magazine.  He is currently Professor of Economics at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution.  He developed endogenous growth theory, which introduced a mathematical explanation of technological advancement.  His work has led to new insights about the importance of human capital and the contrast between the economics of objects and the economics of ideas. One of his key insights has been that because ideas are nonrival or sharable, interacting with more people turns out to make us all better off.

In research that many believe will lead to a Nobel prize, he addresses one of the oldest questions in economics: What sustains economic growth in a physical world characterized by diminishing returns and scarcity?  His more recent work looks at how government policy affects innovation. It suggests that for a developing country, the most important government policies may be those that determine the rate of technology transfer from the rest of the world. For an advanced economy, the most important policies may be the ones that influence the rate of technological innovation in the private sector.  He is also an entrepreneur, running Aplia, a fast growing education technology company. 

Paul has written that:   

"Over time, it became clear to me that we will not understand the deep dynamics of technological ideas until we understood the dynamics of another type of idea, the rules that people follow. The patent system is a set of rules that encourages the discovery of new technologies. So is our system of open science. Rules that limit direct foreign investment can keep ideas from spreading to poor countries. So can rules (and systems of enforcement) that allow high levels of crime. As we interact with more people, the rules become more important and more complicated.In my current work on rules, I have come full circle. I’m starting with a pressing policy concern: How can people living in places like Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Cuba get access to rules that protect them and let them engage in mutually beneficial exchange with others from all over the world?"

Charter Cities were listed as one of the Harvard Business Review’s "10 Breakthrough Ideas for 2010".  By creating city-sized areas where developing countries can experiment with better rules (like Hong Kong in China) better rules and new ideas can spread more quickly.  Paul argues that: "Today’s world offers little chance for large-scale migration. The hundreds of millions of people who want to move to places with better rules aren’t allowed in. Charter cities will become the places where they can go... The process of movement between can be more effective than the process of change from within. Just as important, the presence of movement between creates pressures that speed up change from within."

www.policyexchange.org.uk

If you would like to attend please RSVP to Sara Nori

sn@picapital.co.uk

020 7529 5656