Paul Romer
Life and work
The son of Roy Romer and Romer Bea studied physics and mathematics in 1977 and made his BS in mathematics from the University of Chicago. Then Paul Romer moved to economics. His doctoral thesis, he began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she sat at Queen 's University in Canada continued and finished it in 1983 in Chicago. From 1982 to 1988 he was assistant professor at the University of Rochester, then a professor at the University of Chicago. In 1990 he was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1996 and from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He also works for the Hoover Institution.
Romer dealt already in his dissertation, economic growth, and later became co-founder of the endogenous growth theory, especially through his Romer model.
The concept of " charter cities "
In 2009, Romer caused a sensation with his proposal for the creation of so-called Charter Cities in growth and underdeveloped countries as a means to combat poverty. The concept of charter City builds upon the idea that the government selects a non- populated piece of land to completely discharge it to a foreign government to provide so under its legislative, judicial and executive. Romer sums up the concept with the phrase " Canada developed a Hong Kong in Cuba " together. In this artificially created special zone growth engine will be built that will attract foreign investment and can act as a role model positive impact on the environment. Romer takes as example of success often zoom Hong Kong under British colonial rule. A major incentive to start of from the legal certainty which is guaranteed by the external government in the Charter Cities. This legal certainty would people and investors are pulling almost by itself in the artificially created cities, and thus provide the impetus to growth.
Criticism
The concept is discussed since its publication not only in many media on a broad level, but is also criticized as neoimperialistisch or neo-colonialist. Romer argues that colonialism had individual freedoms restricted, in contrast, no one would be forced to move into the newly established town. The land allocation successes voluntary. Charter Cities as a measure in humanitarian disaster areas such as Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010, he refuses.
The fact is seen that in a charter city would not provide for democratic elections as problematic. This means that politicians would indeed dictate the conditions of life in the city, voted against it they are only in their home country. This is subject to the concept of the same problems as the regular development cooperation, in which the activities will be managed by the policies of donor countries essentially ( and thus indirectly determined by the voters of these donor countries ), the actual beneficiaries, however, the feedback mechanism through elections is missing ( because the citizens of developing countries can not choose the politicians in donor countries ). This leaves the residents of a Charter City to select only the often called " voting with their feet " designated possibility of switching on and emigrating. However, Romer does not categorically exclude elections.
Furthermore, Romer is accused of the information necessary for an artificial city investments are immense, and the concept alone therefore completely unrealistic.