Is the world like Play-Doh or like Lego? That might seem like an odd question for an economist, but there were some provocative characters present at a recent “Growth Week” at the London School of Economics, organised by a new joint venture between Oxford, LSE and the Department for International Development.
Growth Week assembled policymakers from developing countries alongside development economists, and my attention was grabbed by Paul Romer, Ricardo Hausmann and John Sutton, all three of them, in different ways, economic iconoclasts.
Romer created endogenous growth theory – thus memorably giving Michael Heseltine the chance to remark that the idea “wasn’t Brown’s – it was Balls!” He quit academia, founded a successful online education company, and now travels the world campaigning for the foundation of “charter cities”, modern versions of Hong Kong. More of him in a future column.