Comments on: Paul Romer, “A Theory of History, with an Application” http://www.alphaverse.com/paul-romer-%e2%80%9ca-theory-of-history-with-an-application%e2%80%9d/2009/05 Life, the Multiverse and Everything... Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:31:55 +0000 hourly 1 By: A.Alajmovic http://www.alphaverse.com/paul-romer-%e2%80%9ca-theory-of-history-with-an-application%e2%80%9d/2009/05/comment-page-1#comment-107 A.Alajmovic Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:18:48 +0000 http://www.alphaverse.com/paul-romer-%e2%80%9ca-theory-of-history-with-an-application%e2%80%9d/2009/05#comment-107 Thanks for the comment Mark! Great insight. Thanks for the comment Mark! Great insight.

]]> By: Openworld http://www.alphaverse.com/paul-romer-%e2%80%9ca-theory-of-history-with-an-application%e2%80%9d/2009/05/comment-page-1#comment-106 Openworld Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:24:10 +0000 http://www.alphaverse.com/paul-romer-%e2%80%9ca-theory-of-history-with-an-application%e2%80%9d/2009/05#comment-106 Peter Hall, former head of the Fabian Society in the UK, advanced a similar "Freeport Solution" in the late 1970s as an idea to breathe life into Britain's then ailing economy. His proposal inspired the enterprise zone initiatives advanced by conservative governments in the UK and USA during the 1980s. Since then, Openworld (www.openworld.com) has worked on a range of similar initiatives in areas of poverty and high unemployment. Success-sharing free zones can apply a portion of the land value gains resulting from transparency-enhancing business climate reforms with social ventures, including microvouchers for eLearning and eHealthcare. Far from being colonialism era-enclaves, the zones can be privately developed under competitive global tenders, with developers obliged under "build-operate-transfer" style concession agreements to convey assets to workers, residents, and learning/health care institutions of the sponsoring countries. As public sector bureaucracies reach their fiscal limits, the new generation of free economic zones can pioneer sustainable institutional innovations that can replicate and scale far beyond their initial boundaries. Contractual, transnational systems for ensuring world-class dispute resolution and other crucial services can bring rapid growth to now-troubled areas, and set the stage for an updated version of the Hanseatic League to compete with failed and failing state institutions. The new cities that Paul Romer envisages can emerge as magnets for knowledge workers and other mobile creatives who will be increasingly shortchanged by sclerotic, bankrupt, and increasingly kleptocratic governments. Best, Mark Frazier Openworld, Inc. "Awakening assets for good" @openworld (twitter) Peter Hall, former head of the Fabian Society in the UK, advanced a similar “Freeport Solution” in the late 1970s as an idea to breathe life into Britain’s then ailing economy. His proposal inspired the enterprise zone initiatives advanced by conservative governments in the UK and USA during the 1980s.

Since then, Openworld (www.openworld.com) has worked on a range of similar initiatives in areas of poverty and high unemployment. Success-sharing free zones can apply a portion of the land value gains resulting from transparency-enhancing business climate reforms with social ventures, including microvouchers for eLearning and eHealthcare. Far from being colonialism era-enclaves, the zones can be privately developed under competitive global tenders, with developers obliged under “build-operate-transfer” style concession agreements to convey assets to workers, residents, and learning/health care institutions of the sponsoring countries.

As public sector bureaucracies reach their fiscal limits, the new generation of free economic zones can pioneer sustainable institutional innovations that can replicate and scale far beyond their initial boundaries. Contractual, transnational systems for ensuring world-class dispute resolution and other crucial services can bring rapid growth to now-troubled areas, and set the stage for an updated version of the Hanseatic League to compete with failed and failing state institutions.

The new cities that Paul Romer envisages can emerge as magnets for knowledge workers and other mobile creatives who will be increasingly shortchanged by sclerotic, bankrupt, and increasingly kleptocratic governments.

Best,

Mark Frazier
Openworld, Inc.
“Awakening assets for good”
@openworld (twitter)

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