Paul Romer is an American economist, entrepreneur and an activist known for his work on the field of economic growth. He earned a B.S. in physics in 1977 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1983, both from the University of Chicago. Moreover, Romer is currently trying to replicate the success of “Charter City” concept for him to use it as a device in studying economic growth. He believes that undeveloped countries can experience better route for growth if they have finer rules and institutions.
Charter City
Charter city is a latest type of special reform zone extending the concept of special economic zone by increasing its size and escalating the scope of its reforms. This concept emphasizes the idea that a nation with good rules (including institutions), millions of people will come together to build a new city and there is a greater chance that economy of that nation will improve. Moreover According to Paul Romer, “A well-run city lets millions of people come together and enjoy the benefit they can get from working together and trading with each other”. He believes that for a nation to grow, citizens must be given more opportunity to transfer to other places, giving them more chance to live a healthy life.
Applicability in ending RP Poverty
In the Philippines, Rules and laws established by the government are often violated and ignored. Other people think that these regulations are irrelevant and it cannot affect the economy as a whole. But Under Charter City Concept, rules and policies are significant factors in improving a nation. Unfortunately, most policies implemented in the Philippines are feeble and insufficient to forbid theft and violence in the country. How can Filipinos live the “good life” if our government is not addressing these issues? One solution is to adopt rules that are useful in boosting the economy and that will give citizens more chance to move to a better place and live a beautiful life. JAM
“Imagine an alternative process in which people can migrate from a society with bad rules to another society with better rules. In this case, the rules in both places stay the same but people move between them. 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.”- Paul Romer
Paul Romer, an economist known for his work on economic growth, has a plan to change that and recently resigned his tenured teaching position at Stanford to devote his full energies to the challenge. “Moving from bad rules to better ones may be much harder than most economists have allowed.” Romer’s plan calls for the establishment of Hong Kong-like “charter cities,” special zones within developing countries with better rules and institutions. The project has already attracted quite a bit of attention from both economists and the media. So Romer is a brilliant economist, and he has a new and big idea. And because he is The Great Romer, he gets to present this wheeze to national leaders, high-profile conferences and invitation-only gatherings of policy-makers. Trouble is, the idea stinks. With little track record in dealing with poor countries, Romer has come up a grand scheme for lifting Africa and Asia out of poverty. What they need to do, he argues, is give up a big chunk of their land to a rich country. Policy experts from Washington can take over a patch of Rwanda, and invite along GM and Microsoft and Gap to come and set up factories. Poor countries give up their sovereignty in return for the promise of greater prosperity. His big example is Hong Kong. At the end of the first opium war in 1842, the Chinese were marched on board a British warship anchored off Nanjing and forced to sign Hong Kong away to Queen Victoria. Over the next 150 years, the little island turned into Asia's number one capitalist success story. It was an example that Deng Xiaoping ended up copying on the mainland, in coastal provinces such as Guangdong – to explosive economic effect. China's loss of Hong Kong should not be seen as a national humiliation or great international injustice, Romer has written, but "an intervention" which has "done more to reduce world poverty than all the world's official aid programmes of the 20th century combined — and at a fraction of the cost". What the world needs, the economist argues, is not one but 100 Hong Kongs. Applicability in ending RP Poverty The concept of Paul Romer of “charter cities” is actually nice in some parts. I don’t think that Filipinos will be open in the idea of Paul Romer about the charter cities. As a democratic country, many people may object on this concept. For me, I think we can still fight poverty in many other ways. We just need to strengthen the implementation of our laws in order to improve our nation. We do not need to be imperialized just to save our country from poverty. CHA
No comments:
Post a Comment