# Paul Romer **Paul Romer** is an American economist and Nobel laureate who introduced the [[Charter City]] in a 2009 TED talk: a new city, in a poor country, governed by rules supplied and guaranteed by a trusted foreign government. He tried it in Madagascar, where it ended with the fall of the president who backed him, and then in Honduras, where Congress amended the constitution in 2011 to allow such zones and he chaired the commission meant to keep them transparent. He resigned in 2012, saying the government was acting in secret. ## Why he's on the map Romer gave the idea its name and its academic standing, then walked away from the version that was built. The private zones that followed in Honduras, such as [[Próspera]], and the groups that carry the term today, such as the [[Charter Cities Institute]], dropped the public guarantor that was the core of his design. > [!note] Stub > This is a short entry that hasn't been fully written yet. ## See Also - [[Charter City]] - [[Crack-Up Capitalism]] - [[Network State Experiments Roster]]