1 00:00:00,927 --> 00:00:03,555 Today, we're going to be talking about Paul Romer. 2 00:00:04,906 --> 00:00:08,029 Paul Romer taught for a long time at Stanford University. 3 00:00:08,326 --> 00:00:11,075 More recently, he moved to New York University. 4 00:00:11,429 --> 00:00:16,709 And he's most famous for being one of the architects of new growth theory, 5 00:00:16,821 --> 00:00:19,216 though, more recently, he's becoming famous 6 00:00:19,421 --> 00:00:21,690 for his work in development economics, 7 00:00:21,690 --> 00:00:25,563 in fact, for his entrepreneurship in development economics. 8 00:00:25,563 --> 00:00:26,821 More on that soon. 9 00:00:29,128 --> 00:00:32,661 Romer's most famous paper is called "Endogenous Technical Change". 10 00:00:32,867 --> 00:00:37,471 This is a monumental paper, a foundational paper in new growth theory, 11 00:00:37,911 --> 00:00:42,895 and it has led to a huge outpouring of work in growth theory. 12 00:00:43,291 --> 00:00:45,592 We'll be able to discuss the paper in much detail, 13 00:00:45,592 --> 00:00:48,060 but let me just give you an essence of where it came from. 14 00:00:48,189 --> 00:00:49,821 Let's remember the Solow model. 15 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:55,100 In the Solow model, output is a function of A as ideas, 16 00:00:55,148 --> 00:00:57,847 and a combination of capital and labor. 17 00:00:58,387 --> 00:01:02,203 Now, Solow made two assumptions about ideas, A. 18 00:01:02,513 --> 00:01:04,367 First, ideas were a public good. 19 00:01:04,558 --> 00:01:07,285 They were freely available to anyone in the world. 20 00:01:07,776 --> 00:01:08,747 Second, -- 21 00:01:08,878 --> 00:01:13,456 the growth in ideas was exogenous, that is, outside the model. 22 00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:16,706 Ideas just kind of accumulated over time. 23 00:01:17,191 --> 00:01:17,986 Now, -- 24 00:01:18,284 --> 00:01:19,507 in some ways, 25 00:01:19,667 --> 00:01:23,897 this was not such a terrible assumption, particularly the first part. 26 00:01:24,088 --> 00:01:26,504 So, a lot of ideas are public good. 27 00:01:26,657 --> 00:01:27,963 So, for example, 28 00:01:27,963 --> 00:01:30,351 a force is equal to mass times acceleration, 29 00:01:30,351 --> 00:01:31,539 the Pythagorean theorem, 30 00:01:31,539 --> 00:01:33,941 These are public goods available to everyone. 31 00:01:34,346 --> 00:01:37,314 However, the second assumption is really problematic, -- 32 00:01:37,772 --> 00:01:41,466 because growth is about new ideas. 33 00:01:41,669 --> 00:01:43,498 And if you look around in the world, 34 00:01:43,648 --> 00:01:48,397 most research and development is produced by for-profit firms. 35 00:01:48,637 --> 00:01:51,975 Growth ideas are not coming out of the ether, 36 00:01:51,975 --> 00:01:55,462 they're not just arriving magically, 37 00:01:55,462 --> 00:01:58,186 they happen in some places and not in other places, 38 00:01:58,286 --> 00:01:59,940 and they happen for a reason. 39 00:02:00,020 --> 00:02:04,768 They happen because, most of the time, someone is out to make a profit. 40 00:02:04,948 --> 00:02:06,494 In developed economies, 41 00:02:06,494 --> 00:02:12,168 60% to 80% of research and development is privately produced by for-profit firms. 42 00:02:12,751 --> 00:02:16,580 Now, Solow, however, made these assumptions for a reason. 43 00:02:17,398 --> 00:02:21,174 He made these assumptions because they made the model much much simpler, 44 00:02:21,615 --> 00:02:24,782 because, with these assumptions, ideas are freely available, 45 00:02:24,782 --> 00:02:27,428 they're literally free, they're not priced. 46 00:02:27,602 --> 00:02:31,643 That means that capital and labor can be sold in competitive markets; 47 00:02:31,888 --> 00:02:34,501 they can each receive their marginal product. 48 00:02:34,517 --> 00:02:37,516 The product itself can be sold in competitive markets, 49 00:02:37,601 --> 00:02:39,574 and the payments to capital and labor 50 00:02:39,574 --> 00:02:43,651 will nicely sum up to exactly equal the price of the product. 51 00:02:43,792 --> 00:02:47,868 So everything works out beautifully with competitive firms 52 00:02:47,868 --> 00:02:51,127 when ideas are not priced. 53 00:02:51,368 --> 00:02:52,256 However, -- 54 00:02:52,495 --> 00:02:55,327 when ideas are priced, we have a problem. 55 00:02:55,476 --> 00:02:56,703 Let's take a look. 56 00:02:56,875 --> 00:02:58,918 Ideas are non-rivalrous, 57 00:02:59,228 --> 00:03:01,581 and they cannot be sold in competitive markets 58 00:03:01,581 --> 00:03:04,068 because the marginal cost is zero. 59 00:03:04,347 --> 00:03:07,571 So the classic example here is the pharmaceutical. 60 00:03:07,735 --> 00:03:10,002 The first pill costs a billion dollars. 61 00:03:10,070 --> 00:03:12,113 The second pill costs 50 cents. 62 00:03:12,395 --> 00:03:15,533 That 50 cents that can be produced, 63 00:03:15,533 --> 00:03:17,731 the 2nd pill, and the 3rd, and the 4th, and the 5th, -- 64 00:03:18,551 --> 00:03:21,858 and the nth pill can be produced in competitive markets. 65 00:03:22,289 --> 00:03:25,543 The 50 cents comes from payments to capital and labor, 66 00:03:25,543 --> 00:03:29,572 which are just enough to cover the 50 cents cost of the product. 67 00:03:29,847 --> 00:03:30,630 But, -- 68 00:03:31,088 --> 00:03:34,994 that doesn't leave anything over for producing the formula, 69 00:03:34,994 --> 00:03:37,414 for producing the idea which made -- 70 00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:40,897 the pharmaceutical possible in the first place. 71 00:03:41,162 --> 00:03:45,431 So you can't sell pharmaceuticals in competitive markets, -- 72 00:03:46,736 --> 00:03:49,373 because that doesn't leave enough left over 73 00:03:49,373 --> 00:03:51,555 to fund the research and development 74 00:03:51,555 --> 00:03:54,222 which went into producing the product in the first place. 75 00:03:54,263 --> 00:03:56,318 There has to be some monopoly power. 76 00:03:57,117 --> 00:04:00,111 Either the monopoly power maybe comes from a patent, 77 00:04:00,215 --> 00:04:02,426 or maybe it comes from being first to market, 78 00:04:02,426 --> 00:04:05,222 or having a trade secret, or having some knowledge, 79 00:04:05,222 --> 00:04:07,812 or being able to do things better than other people do. 80 00:04:07,827 --> 00:04:10,149 But you need some monopoly power -- 81 00:04:11,022 --> 00:04:12,472 to fund these ideas. 82 00:04:13,447 --> 00:04:17,386 Ideas also create spillovers, even when you have monopoly power. 83 00:04:17,561 --> 00:04:19,794 Well, the patent runs out over time. 84 00:04:20,516 --> 00:04:24,755 The idea itself can be copied not directly but can be -- 85 00:04:25,802 --> 00:04:29,339 the idea can still be useful and still spread around the world. 86 00:04:29,714 --> 00:04:30,945 So what did Romer do? 87 00:04:31,153 --> 00:04:34,951 But what Romer did is he created a model of growth based on ideas 88 00:04:35,161 --> 00:04:38,191 which were privately produced by for-profit firms 89 00:04:38,391 --> 00:04:42,507 in monopolistically competitive markets with spillovers. 90 00:04:43,217 --> 00:04:43,994 Now, -- 91 00:04:44,693 --> 00:04:47,681 in one way, that's just following the formula, 92 00:04:47,681 --> 00:04:51,228 that's just doing exactly what we would hope a model should do. 93 00:04:51,343 --> 00:04:55,447 But bear in mind that everyone knew this was kind of the right way to go. 94 00:04:55,447 --> 00:04:57,364 Everyone knew this was the right model. 95 00:04:57,369 --> 00:04:59,769 But Arrow failed to create this model, 96 00:04:59,769 --> 00:05:01,900 Samuelson failed to create this model, 97 00:05:02,048 --> 00:05:04,095 Solow failed to create this model. 98 00:05:04,095 --> 00:05:08,078 It wasn't until Romer, that all the knots were tied, 99 00:05:08,222 --> 00:05:12,110 that we had all of these characteristics, which we know are true, 100 00:05:12,202 --> 00:05:15,492 that ideas are produced by monopolistic firms, 101 00:05:15,637 --> 00:05:17,926 that ideas are really important in growth. 102 00:05:18,428 --> 00:05:19,987 Ideas have spillovers. 103 00:05:20,238 --> 00:05:23,120 All of these ideas combined in a model; 104 00:05:23,191 --> 00:05:25,063 that was really Romer's, 105 00:05:25,063 --> 00:05:29,493 a supreme accomplishment, in this paper of 1990. 106 00:05:31,106 --> 00:05:33,955 Now, I said the model was a real technical achievement. 107 00:05:34,313 --> 00:05:35,287 That's true, -- 108 00:05:35,517 --> 00:05:37,601 but the really important aspect is that 109 00:05:37,601 --> 00:05:41,073 economists often don't start to think about things until we have a model. 110 00:05:41,671 --> 00:05:46,490 And what Romer did is he put ideas at the heart of growth theory. 111 00:05:46,798 --> 00:05:48,507 And once you do that, 112 00:05:48,507 --> 00:05:51,991 you start to open up and start thinking about a lot of new things. 113 00:05:51,991 --> 00:05:53,517 Like in the Solow model, 114 00:05:53,666 --> 00:05:56,095 it's all about the accumulation of capital. 115 00:05:56,813 --> 00:05:59,346 Once you have ideas at the heart of the model, 116 00:05:59,346 --> 00:06:02,563 you start thinking about things like patents and intellectual property. 117 00:06:02,698 --> 00:06:04,531 You start thinking about universities, 118 00:06:04,761 --> 00:06:07,607 about capital markets like venture capitalists 119 00:06:07,705 --> 00:06:10,868 and having a capital market, strong capital market, 120 00:06:10,868 --> 00:06:13,845 so that entrepreneurs can take their firms public. 121 00:06:14,790 --> 00:06:16,689 You start thinking about human capital, 122 00:06:16,689 --> 00:06:20,735 and why we might not have enough human capital in research, 123 00:06:20,894 --> 00:06:22,957 why research might be underfunded, 124 00:06:22,957 --> 00:06:26,583 because we get spillovers, because that's a monopolistic industry. 125 00:06:27,253 --> 00:06:29,489 You start asking yourselves questions about: 126 00:06:29,694 --> 00:06:31,483 why do some ideas, 127 00:06:31,745 --> 00:06:34,670 how do ideas transmit themselves across the world? 128 00:06:34,696 --> 00:06:36,768 How do they flow across the world? 129 00:06:36,941 --> 00:06:38,396 Where do ideas begin? 130 00:06:38,449 --> 00:06:41,875 Why does it take some ideas a long time to transmit 131 00:06:42,149 --> 00:06:45,052 and other ideas move across the world quite quickly? 132 00:06:45,295 --> 00:06:47,489 You get a whole new perspective on trade, 133 00:06:47,489 --> 00:06:49,644 and the importance of market size 134 00:06:49,644 --> 00:06:53,134 as generating the incentives to produce R&D. 135 00:06:53,925 --> 00:06:58,645 You begin to think about differences in types of ideas like technologies. 136 00:06:58,852 --> 00:07:02,169 These seem much more amenable to be communicated across -- 137 00:07:02,258 --> 00:07:04,687 different countries than do rules. 138 00:07:04,985 --> 00:07:08,508 Rules, by rules I mean things like: how do people interact? 139 00:07:08,923 --> 00:07:10,373 Rules about -- 140 00:07:13,864 --> 00:07:15,945 rules like how to create a corporation, 141 00:07:16,025 --> 00:07:17,930 how to create honest government. 142 00:07:17,986 --> 00:07:19,437 Rules like -- 143 00:07:20,238 --> 00:07:22,459 democracy, the rule of law, 144 00:07:22,714 --> 00:07:24,248 honest judges, 145 00:07:24,312 --> 00:07:28,012 judges separated from politicians, 146 00:07:28,012 --> 00:07:29,526 a separation of powers. 147 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:33,076 Much harder to transmit these ideas and have these ideas adopted 148 00:07:33,274 --> 00:07:35,247 than it is to have ideas about, -- 149 00:07:35,654 --> 00:07:38,565 you know, how to create an engine, for example. 150 00:07:39,075 --> 00:07:42,322 You also begin to think about where ideas are created 151 00:07:42,322 --> 00:07:45,287 and what is necessary to create new ideas. You think about cities, -- 152 00:07:45,439 --> 00:07:47,227 you think about density, 153 00:07:47,227 --> 00:07:50,194 of getting people close together to transmit knowledge. 154 00:07:50,372 --> 00:07:51,674 You think about networks. 155 00:07:52,153 --> 00:07:55,884 So all of these ideas about ideas were introduced -- 156 00:07:56,587 --> 00:08:00,872 by the Romer model and put at the center of growth theory by Paul Romer. 157 00:08:03,612 --> 00:08:05,070 So in the late 1980s, 158 00:08:05,070 --> 00:08:08,042 Romer had produced a number of papers in new growth theory, 159 00:08:08,362 --> 00:08:10,868 culminating in this great 1990 paper. 160 00:08:11,397 --> 00:08:14,769 Many people thought he was on the track for a Nobel Prize, 161 00:08:14,929 --> 00:08:17,546 which he may yet win deservedly in my view. 162 00:08:18,005 --> 00:08:20,211 And then something strange happened. 163 00:08:20,780 --> 00:08:22,549 Romer disappeared, -- 164 00:08:22,912 --> 00:08:27,331 or at least it seemed that way to many people in the economics profession. 165 00:08:27,768 --> 00:08:29,711 Romer actually gave up tenure. 166 00:08:29,890 --> 00:08:31,524 He gave up tenure at Stanford. 167 00:08:31,526 --> 00:08:35,830 He took an extended five-year leave of absence from Stanford. 168 00:08:36,039 --> 00:08:37,048 To do what? 169 00:08:37,223 --> 00:08:39,421 Well, Romer created a startup. 170 00:08:39,939 --> 00:08:41,372 He created Aplia -- 171 00:08:41,735 --> 00:08:45,643 which, long before it became the buzzword that it is now, 172 00:08:45,765 --> 00:08:49,551 Aplia was the beginnings of online education. 173 00:08:50,134 --> 00:08:52,410 Aplia was a homework solution. 174 00:08:52,765 --> 00:08:54,880 Professors could assign quizzes, 175 00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:57,139 could grade all their homework online, 176 00:08:57,139 --> 00:08:59,967 could do experiments online in economics. 177 00:08:59,967 --> 00:09:02,850 They could shift the demand curve. Students could shift demand curves 178 00:09:02,850 --> 00:09:04,069 and supply curves. 179 00:09:04,617 --> 00:09:08,218 It was a fantastic, fantastic device, -- 180 00:09:09,373 --> 00:09:10,676 and very successful. 181 00:09:11,745 --> 00:09:14,079 Romer ran Aplia for about seven years 182 00:09:14,079 --> 00:09:16,576 and then sold it for a lot of money to Cengage. 183 00:09:16,576 --> 00:09:18,668 Aplia is still going strong today. 184 00:09:19,839 --> 00:09:22,891 So, did Romer leave new growth theory? 185 00:09:23,088 --> 00:09:26,867 Or did he take the lessons of new growth theory, 186 00:09:26,867 --> 00:09:28,890 the importance of ideas, 187 00:09:28,890 --> 00:09:31,312 the importance of ideas to create new ideas, 188 00:09:31,312 --> 00:09:32,916 to increase productivity, 189 00:09:32,916 --> 00:09:36,202 and did he apply those lessons to a great startup? 190 00:09:36,451 --> 00:09:37,643 I think the latter. 191 00:09:37,958 --> 00:09:40,781 And Romer's story has not yet ended. 192 00:09:42,188 --> 00:09:46,404 Most recently, Romer has come up with a startling new idea for development, 193 00:09:46,727 --> 00:09:47,900 charter cities. 194 00:09:48,106 --> 00:09:49,095 What is this? 195 00:09:49,287 --> 00:09:50,966 Well, let's go back to the problem. 196 00:09:51,183 --> 00:09:54,352 The problem is the iron rule of rules. 197 00:09:54,673 --> 00:09:58,382 What I mean by this is that we saw that some rules, 198 00:09:58,382 --> 00:10:02,146 things like the rule of law, things like anti-corruption, 199 00:10:02,146 --> 00:10:04,161 things like honesty in government. 200 00:10:04,166 --> 00:10:07,316 These types of rules are hard to transmit. 201 00:10:07,421 --> 00:10:09,130 Now, why are they hard to transmit? 202 00:10:09,331 --> 00:10:13,276 Well, they may be hard to transmit because they require a lot of interaction 203 00:10:13,276 --> 00:10:14,816 and a lot of coordination. 204 00:10:15,087 --> 00:10:16,777 It's kind of like getting everyone 205 00:10:16,777 --> 00:10:19,149 from driving on the left-hand side of the road 206 00:10:19,149 --> 00:10:21,992 to switch to driving on the right-hand side of the road. 207 00:10:22,209 --> 00:10:25,580 Everyone must agree to coordinate on the new equilibrium, 208 00:10:25,625 --> 00:10:27,145 and that's really hard. 209 00:10:27,348 --> 00:10:28,694 There may be forces. 210 00:10:28,981 --> 00:10:31,964 You can't you do it, you know, halfway, in halfway steps, 211 00:10:31,994 --> 00:10:33,848 you can't do it a little bit at a time. 212 00:10:34,018 --> 00:10:37,577 You've got to go all the way or nothing, and that is very, very difficult. 213 00:10:37,770 --> 00:10:41,838 Sweden, by the way, actually managed to do this in the 1970s. 214 00:10:42,253 --> 00:10:45,904 So in just the same way that it's hard to get people to coordinate 215 00:10:45,904 --> 00:10:49,934 on switching from the right-hand side to the left-hand side or vice-versa, 216 00:10:50,088 --> 00:10:54,281 it may be hard to get people to coordinate out of the corruption trap. 217 00:10:54,751 --> 00:10:57,294 Once you become known, 218 00:10:57,388 --> 00:11:02,128 once the rules of helping out your cousin, of helping out your tribe member. 219 00:11:02,225 --> 00:11:07,034 Once that rule becomes laid down, a single person breaking from that rule -- 220 00:11:07,378 --> 00:11:09,344 is gonna have a really hard time. 221 00:11:09,451 --> 00:11:11,571 they're gonna be squashed right back down again. 222 00:11:11,571 --> 00:11:14,666 If you don't help out your cousin, you're gonna be thrown out of the family. 223 00:11:14,666 --> 00:11:17,693 It's really hard to break out of these coordination traps. 224 00:11:17,878 --> 00:11:19,161 So how do you do it? 225 00:11:19,473 --> 00:11:21,941 Well, the solution is startups -- 226 00:11:22,435 --> 00:11:24,819 or a big push in ideas. 227 00:11:24,899 --> 00:11:29,004 This is like the big push idea coming back to us again, but now it's in ideas. 228 00:11:29,174 --> 00:11:30,577 What do I mean exactly? 229 00:11:30,605 --> 00:11:33,129 Well, what I mean and what Romer means is 230 00:11:33,231 --> 00:11:35,425 to start up a new city, 231 00:11:35,628 --> 00:11:41,299 a new city on unoccupied land, with a charter of new rules. 232 00:11:41,926 --> 00:11:44,181 What does he have in mind for these new rules? 233 00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:46,570 Well, he wants the rules to come from outside 234 00:11:46,764 --> 00:11:48,762 to launch this new equilibrium. 235 00:11:48,849 --> 00:11:52,378 So, for example, you take an unoccupied piece of land 236 00:11:52,499 --> 00:11:54,133 in a developed country, 237 00:11:54,174 --> 00:11:58,521 and you would turn that unoccupied piece of land over -- 238 00:12:00,241 --> 00:12:03,285 to Canada, over to Great Britain, 239 00:12:03,471 --> 00:12:06,513 and have them apply this new set of rules, 240 00:12:06,513 --> 00:12:09,549 and then have people voluntarily enter the city, 241 00:12:09,693 --> 00:12:12,794 voluntarily put themselves under the new set of rules. 242 00:12:13,143 --> 00:12:16,101 Hong Kong here is the classic example. 243 00:12:16,434 --> 00:12:18,619 Remember it was Hong Kong, -- 244 00:12:18,932 --> 00:12:22,599 which has actually completely revolutionized China. 245 00:12:22,768 --> 00:12:25,751 And that's what Romer is hoping. Start up a new city, 246 00:12:26,026 --> 00:12:31,527 create it not only as an end in itself but as a demonstration project. 247 00:12:31,765 --> 00:12:36,259 New city of 10 million people or so operating under completely new rules. 248 00:12:36,407 --> 00:12:39,058 New rules which have been successful elsewhere, 249 00:12:39,254 --> 00:12:40,877 bring them to the new city. 250 00:12:41,327 --> 00:12:45,925 Now, Romer introduced this idea only in 2010 or so; it's very recent. 251 00:12:45,925 --> 00:12:47,292 And yet, incredibly, 252 00:12:47,292 --> 00:12:50,471 he's already had some success in pushing the idea -- 253 00:12:51,626 --> 00:12:52,636 around the world. 254 00:12:53,595 --> 00:12:57,592 So Honduras, for example, has indicated that it will create, 255 00:12:57,592 --> 00:13:02,104 in fact, has created this unoccupied piece of land 256 00:13:02,309 --> 00:13:04,443 where these new rules could be put in place. 257 00:13:04,543 --> 00:13:05,530 Right now, -- 258 00:13:06,053 --> 00:13:11,835 Romer is looking for a third party to come in and help run the new city. 259 00:13:12,045 --> 00:13:13,989 Canada is one possibility. 260 00:13:14,441 --> 00:13:16,624 He's got the judges from outside, 261 00:13:16,624 --> 00:13:20,085 also being willing to come in and apply the new rules. 262 00:13:20,405 --> 00:13:22,937 Now bear in mind here; something really important; 263 00:13:23,073 --> 00:13:26,993 and that is that the world is urbanizing at a really fast rate. 264 00:13:27,344 --> 00:13:29,320 So take India, for example, 265 00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:33,317 it's got 800 million people or so still living a rural existence. 266 00:13:33,511 --> 00:13:36,188 But it's clear, over the next 20 to 30 years, 267 00:13:36,346 --> 00:13:39,684 hundreds of millions of these people are going to be coming to cities, 268 00:13:39,684 --> 00:13:41,531 many of them new cities. 269 00:13:41,664 --> 00:13:44,246 So now is a great opportunity -- 270 00:13:44,962 --> 00:13:47,744 to create fresh new cities. 271 00:13:47,744 --> 00:13:50,410 Cities not beholden to the old rules. 272 00:13:50,670 --> 00:13:54,611 Cities, for example, where caste would no longer be recognized. 273 00:13:54,926 --> 00:13:56,326 That, at least is the hope. 274 00:13:56,592 --> 00:13:58,069 Will Romer be successful? 275 00:13:58,234 --> 00:14:00,493 Who knows. But it's a bold idea. 276 00:14:00,713 --> 00:14:03,535 He has revolutionized economics education, 277 00:14:03,535 --> 00:14:05,516 he revolutionized new growth theory. 278 00:14:05,743 --> 00:14:08,619 Perhaps this idea is going to take off as well. 279 00:14:10,094 --> 00:14:13,430 Here's a couple of places you can find out more about Paul Romer, 280 00:14:13,782 --> 00:14:16,560 particularly about this new idea of charter cities. 281 00:14:16,844 --> 00:14:20,005 Russ Roberts has an excellent interview at EconTalk. 282 00:14:20,056 --> 00:14:22,259 You can also look at Romer's TED talk. 283 00:14:22,617 --> 00:14:24,645 I want to also close with the following. 284 00:14:25,058 --> 00:14:28,689 You know, I see Paul Romer is a lot like Coase, 285 00:14:29,212 --> 00:14:31,226 and that Coase didn't write very much. 286 00:14:31,490 --> 00:14:33,367 He produced only a handful of papers. 287 00:14:33,536 --> 00:14:36,322 But those papers were absolutely revolutionary, 288 00:14:36,727 --> 00:14:38,543 and Romer is the same way. 289 00:14:38,757 --> 00:14:42,157 He hasn't written a lot, but what he has written has been very deep, 290 00:14:42,157 --> 00:14:45,442 has been very fundamental, has been much more important -- 291 00:14:46,332 --> 00:14:49,275 than most other work which goes on in economics. 292 00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:53,472 Indeed, when I think about the economists which have most influenced me, 293 00:14:54,221 --> 00:14:59,497 when I think about the ideas which I think about most on an everyday basis, 294 00:14:59,563 --> 00:15:02,433 which I use to interpret the world, -- 295 00:15:02,651 --> 00:15:04,933 ideas which I use to interpret the world, 296 00:15:04,933 --> 00:15:08,331 a lot of them about growth theory, about the importance of ideas, 297 00:15:08,331 --> 00:15:12,686 about trade, about markets, they're coming from Paul Romer. 298 00:15:12,987 --> 00:15:15,682 So indeed, if you want to take a look at my TED talk, 299 00:15:15,826 --> 00:15:17,557 Tabarrok's TED talk, 300 00:15:17,613 --> 00:15:19,865 you'll see that that's really an introduction 301 00:15:19,865 --> 00:15:22,127 to the ideas of Paul Romer in many ways. 302 00:15:22,559 --> 00:15:24,144 So, thanks very much.