Lant Pritchett writes,

While the contribution of the new growth models to the internal logic of the economics discipline has been lasting, the bloom came off the rose of the explicit use of new growth models for policy purposes in developing countries relatively quickly. Nearly everything about the first-generation growth models was at odds with the needs of developing country policymakers. The new growth literature focused on the very long run and on incentives for expanding the technological frontier—not particularly useful for most developing countries, whose primary interest was in restoring short- to medium-term growth and accelerating technological catchup by adopting known innovations.

Perhaps Romer is not such a favorite for the Nobel, after all.

Read Pritchett’s whole article, for the quality of writing. Thanks to Timothy Taylor in the Journal of Economic Perspectives for the pointer.