Interesting Proposal for Economic Development

I have been at a Summer Institute for most of this week. (It was very interesting and very informative. I promise to blog on it.) And when I wasn't there, I was wrapping up some teaching duties. But that's done and now I can get caught up.

First, here is an article from The Atlantic (HT to Arts & Letters Daily) that explores intriguing idea to foster economic development in in poorer countries. The idea comes from Paul Romer, one of the economists who, in the 1990s, helped to reshape our ideas about economic growth. It probably wouldn't be useful in class, but it should prove useful in providing you with some discussion priming when discussing economic development in your macro section. What do you think?