Paul Romer

Paul Romer, an economist and policy entrepreneur, is the founding director of the NYU Stern Urbanization Project. The Urbanization Project conducts applied research on the many ways in which policymakers in the developing world can use the rapid growth of cities to create economic opportunity and undertake systemic social reform. Professor Romer is also a University Professor at New York University and Director of NYU''s Marron Institute of Urban Management. Marron deepens the fundamental understanding of cities by working with civic innovators to improve urban management.

Before coming to NYU, Professor Romer taught at Stanford University''s Graduate School of Business. While there, he took an entrepreneurial detour to start Aplia, an education technology company dedicated to increasing student effort and classroom engagement. To date, students have submitted more than 1 billion answers to homework problems on the Aplia website.

Prior to Stanford, Professor Romer taught in the economics departments at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago and the University of Rochester. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a non-resident scholar at both the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, Ontario. In 2002, he received the Recktenwald Prize for his work on the role of ideas in sustaining economic growth.

Professor Romer serves on the board of trustees for the Carnegie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching. He is also a member of the board of directors for Community Solutions, a national not-for-profit dedicated to strengthening communities and ending homelessness.

Professor Romer earned a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Chicago. He earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago after doing graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Queens University.

Areas of Expertise

City Management