KEY CONCEPTS AND THINKERS

is dictated by government agency priorities or academic interests,
but instead when it is closely integrated into the operations of a
firm and motivated by the problems and opportunities that the
firm faces.''

On this view, the hope for LDCs lies in investing in education and
providing incentives to its people to acquire ideas from other parts
of the world, create their own, and apply those ideas commercially.
Effective patent and copyright protection, for instance, are powerful
incentives to the creation and transmission of ideas. Many LDCs have
suffered a ``brain drain'' as local talent has emigrated to the developed
world where there is more opportunity for fulfilling ``knowledge work.''

Romer delights and offends both ardent free marketeers and protec-

tionists with his fresh approach. For example his views on what he calls
``meta-ideas,'' ideas about how to encourage the creation and distribu-
tion of useful ideas, suggest that developed nations should find new
institutions to support ``a high level of applied, commercially-relevant
research in the private sector. These institutions must not impose high
efficiency costs and, most important, must not be vulnerable to capture
by narrow interests.'' This implies a combination of state intervention
with private enterprise.

Although still young (he is in his early 40s), Romer is widely tipped

for a Nobel Prize in economics, although skeptics say that more work
is needed on how to apply his theories. Intellectually rigorous and
cautious, Romer is nevertheless willing to make a firm prediction that
the leading country in the twenty-first century will be the one that finds
a new and more effective way (a ``meta-idea'') of supporting private
sector production of commercially applicable ideas. Romer is certain
that such ways will be found.