| | Mike,
I appreciate your reservations. College professors are possibly the worst evil that this world has ever known (e.g., ultimately responsible for the initiated destruction of the greatest-ever country on earth: the United States of America). But Romer makes a big deal about a rule called "opt in." This makes it more experimental than regimented. Basically, if you want to live under a set of rules, you "opt in." If you don't want to, then you simply "opt out." In a paper on the subject, he shows how China responded to the experimental success of Hong Kong:
The British administered this small piece of Chinese territory, and many Chinese people opted into the new set of rules that prevailed there. Later, the Chinese government deliberately established the nearby city of Shenzhen, adopting market rules similar to those that prevailed in increasingly prosperous Hong Kong. ... Many people chose to opt into the new rules in Shenzhen, which grew very quickly from an area with very little population to an urban area of approximately 15 million people. So, when push comes to shove, there's some good stuff here. Imagine this: If US unemployment shot up to over 30% and the current administration "stepped down" (relinquished their positions) and if Romer was nominated as the interim President of the United States, and if he took an area of formerly-rural land and said that the rules there will be exactly as they are in Hong Kong -- would you opt in?
I would.
Ed
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In a sense, Britain inadvertently, through it actions in Hong Kong, did more to reduce world poverty than all the aid programs that we've undertaken in the last century.
