Some further readingPaul Romer himself has a nice essay on ‘climate optimism’ and the extent to which endogenous invention matters for how we stop global warming. On why anyone signs climate change abatement agreements, instead of just free riding, see the clever incomplete contracts insight of Battaglini and Harstad (2016).
Romer has also been greatly interested in the policy of ‘high-growth’ places, pushing the idea of ’charter cities’. Charter cities involve Hong Kong-like exclaves of a developing country where the institutions and legal systems are farmed out to a more stable nation. Totally reasonable, but in fact quite controversial: a charter city proposal in Madagascarled to a coup, and one can easily imagine that the charter city controversy delayed Romer's well-deserved Nobel laurel.
The New York Times points out that Nordhaus' brother helped write the Clean Air Act of 1970.
Finally, as is always true with the Nobel, the official scientific summary is lucid and deep in its exploration of the two winners' work.
ReferencesAcemoglu, D (2002), ‘Directed Technical Change’, Review of Economic Studies 69(4): 781-809.
Acemoglu, D, P Aghion, L Bursztyn, and D Hemous (2012), ‘The Environment and Directed Technical Change’, American Economic Review 102(1): 131-66.
Aghion, P, and P Howitt (1992), ‘A Model of Growth Through Creative Destruction’, Econometrica60(2): 323-51.
Arrow, K (1962), ‘The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing’, Review of Economic Studies 29 (3): 155-173.
Battaglini, M, and B Harstad (2016), ‘Participation and Duration of Environmental Agreements’, Journal of Political Economy 124(1): 160-204.
Dasgupta, P, and J Stiglitz (1988), ‘Learning-by-Doing, Market Structure and Industrial and Trade Policies’, Oxford Economic Papers 40(2): 246-68.
Grossman, G M, and E Helpman (1991), ‘Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth’, Review of Economic Studies 58 (1): 43-61.
Jones, B (2009), ‘The Burden of Knowledge and the Death of the Renaissance Man: Is Innovation Getting Harder?’, Review of Economic Studies 76(1): 283-317.
Jones, C (1995), ‘R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth’, Journal of Political Economy 103(4): 759-84.
Jones, C (1999), ‘Growth: With or Without Scale Effects?’, American Economic Review 89(2): 139-44.
Kremer, M (1993), ‘Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 108(3): 681-716.
Meadows, D H, D L Meadows, J Randers and W H Behrens III (1971), The Limits to Growth, Potomac Associates.
Nordhaus, W (1969), ‘An Economic Theory of Technological Change’, American Economic Review 59(2): 18-28.
Nordhaus, W (1973a), ‘World Dynamics: Measurement Without Data’, Economic Journal 83 (332): 1156-83.
Nordhaus, W (1973b), ‘Some Skeptical Thoughts on the Theory of Induced Innovation’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 87(2): 208-19.
Nordhaus, W (1974), ‘Resources as a Constraint on Growth’, American Economic Review 64(2): 22-26.
Nordhaus, W (1975), ‘Can We Control Carbon Dioxide?’, mimeo.
Nordhaus, W (1992), ‘Lethal Model 2: The Limits to Growth Revisited’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 23(2): 1-60.
Nordhaus, W (1996), ‘Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not’, in The Economics of New Goods, National Bureau of Economic Research.
Nordhaus, W (2005), ‘Schumpeterian Profits and the Alchemist Fallacy’, Yale Economic Applications and Policy Discussion Paper No. 6.
Nordhaus, W (2007), 'A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change’, Journal of Economic Literature 45(3): 686-702.
Nordhaus, W (2015), ‘Climate Clubs: Overcoming Free-Riding in International Climate Policy’, American Economic Review 105(4): 1339-70.
Nordhaus, W, and J. Tobin (1972), ‘Is Growth Obsolete?’, in Economic Growth: Fiftieth Anniversary Colloquium V, National Bureau of Economic Research, Columbia University Press.
Ramsey, FP (1928), ‘A Mathematical Theory of Saving’, Economic Journal 38(152): 543-59.
Romer, PM (1986), ‘Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth’, Journal of Political Economy 94(5): 1002-37.
Romer, PM (1990), ‘Endogenous Technological Change’, Journal of Political Economy 98(5): 71-102.
Stern, N H, S Peters, V Bakhski, A Bowen, C Cameron, S Catovsky, D Crane, S Cruickshank, S Dietz, N Edmondson, S-L Garbett, L Hamid, G Hoffman, D Ingram, B Jones, N Patmore, H Radcliffe, R Sathiyarajah, M Stock, C Taylor, T Vernon, H Wanjie, and D Zenghelis (2006), Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change, Cambridge University Press.
Study of Critical Environmental Problems (1970), Man's Impact on the Global Environment: Assessment and Recommendations for Action, MIT Press.
Tinbergen, J (1942), ‘Zur Theorie der langfristigen Wirtschaftsentwicklung’, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 55: 511-49
Warsh, D (2006), Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery, WW Norton.