Academic Contributions
Romer's most important work is in the field of economic growth. Economists studied long-run growth extensively during the 1950s and 1960s. The work of Robert Solow, for example, established the primacy of technological progress in accounting for sustained increases in output per worker. Romer's articles published in 1986 and 1990 amounted to constructing mathematical representations of economies in which technological change is the result of the intentional actions of people, such as research and development. This started endogenous growth theory.
Romer is credited with the quote, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." which he said during a November 2004 venture-capitalist meeting in California. Although he was referring to the rapidly rising education levels in other countries versus the United States, the quote became a sounding horn by economists and consultants looking for a positive take away from the economic downturn of 2007-2009.
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Famous quotes containing the word academic:
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)