Manhattan Reborn 1978

Hong Kong.

Morning, quarter past nine.

The tenth floor of the Peninsula Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon Peninsula.

After David finished washing up in his room, he followed Peter and Kanes out of the hotel, took a car into the Hung Hom Cross-Harbour Tunnel, passed through the Central Business District, spent about half an hour, and finally arrived at the Canadian Tower on Victoria Peak. Villa at No. 60 Lieshan Road.

When David got out of the car and stood in front of this historic two-story white building, he saw Karnes's uncle Schroeter looking at him from the window on the first floor.

"Is this your uncle's temporary residence?" David turned back to Karnes and asked.

"No~"

"He never thought about setting up a new home here." Karnes glanced at his uncle who disappeared from the window and shrugged.

"Come in quickly and let's walk around."

"Um..Aren't you guys together?"

"Yes!" Little Peter walked up to David, patted him on the shoulder and smiled.

"The last time Uncle Schrott invited someone to meet alone was three years ago."

"Sorry ~ we can't help you anymore."

"Okay." David shrugged indifferently and walked into the open door under the gaze of the two people.

Inside the villa.

Schroeter is in the living room on the left.

David walked into the living room, waved to Schrott and smiled.

"Hello, uncle!"

"Come and sit."

The tall Schroter, with a slightly elongated face and very bright eyes, sat on the sofa and pointed to the side, smiling.

David sat down "obediently" and asked after taking a look at the simple furniture placed around him.

"You chose to come here...do you want to ask me something alone?"

"Ah."

Schroeter took out an empty pipe from his pocket and held it in the corner of his mouth, pointing to the yellow file bag on the low table in front of him: "The name of the earliest owner here is Leonard Benjamin Johnson."

"In the 30s, he worked in the Education Bureau of the Hong Kong Government."

"After the outbreak of World War II, he joined the army and died on the battlefield during a battle with the island country's army that invaded Hong Kong."

“The house was left to his wife and son after the war.”

"In 73, this house was repossessed by HSBC Bank due to debt problems. After simple renovation, it is what you see."

"But now you just need to sign and he's yours."

"..." David nodded calmly, without even looking at the file bag. He still looked at Schrott and waited.

The corner of Schroeter's mouth, which was holding a pipe, was slightly raised. He seemed a little surprised by David's reaction and continued.

"Last July, at the National Bureau of Economic Research's summer seminar, there was a young man named Paul Krugman who graduated from Yale University."

"He conquered all the economists attending the meeting with a ninety-minute speech."

"The title of his paper is "International Monopolistic Competition Trade Model"."

"Later, when he faced the honors and..." Schrott's story continued.

After David heard Schroeter mention Paul Krugman, everything about him immediately came to mind.

"The Age of Diminished Expectations", "The Mystery of the Asian Miracle", "The Return of Depression Economics", "Popular Internationalism" and "International Economics", "The Big Break", "The Conscience of a Liberal" and other works are all written by Paul. Krugman's classic representative works published in the next thirty years.

But what really made Paul Krugman famous internationally was one of his predictions~

In 96, Krugman predicted the impending Asian financial crisis in his book "Popular Internationalism". .

He proposed that the so-called Asian miracle was "built on floating sand and will be disillusioned sooner or later."

In the prosperous period of rapid development, Asia has been facing a profound economic crisis and will enter a large-scale adjustment within a certain period of time.

In 97, the financial crisis that swept across Asia came, and his prediction was successfully verified, effectively establishing Krugman's status as a "new generation of economics master".

When David first started making plans at the New York Public Library, he was inspired by Paul Krugman's successful predictions and finally decided to take the crucial first step in a similar way.

. . .

"David?"

"Well...ah..."

"Sorry, uncle."

Schroter's "summoning" made David, who was a little distracted, withdraw from his memories and thinking, and said with an apologetic smile.

"The Paul Krugman you mentioned reminds me of Laura, who was studying at Yale University at this time."

"Oh?" Schroeter took off his pipe, narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at David, asking a question that could be called a 360-degree spiral turn.

"What do you think of Xiong Daguo?"

"..." David quickly organized the words in his mind, but the expression on his face remained unchanged as he asked.

"Which aspect are you referring to?"

"It will be all right."

"Which aspect do you know best? Just tell me."

"it is good."

David took a deep breath and said slowly: "In 1760, Lomonosov of Tsarist Russia first proposed the name of economic geography and pointed out that the study of national economy must be carried out in conjunction with geographical conditions."

"In 1882, the German geographer Goetz published "The Task of Economic Geography" - an article discussing the nature and composition of economic geography."

"Compared with the business geography that appeared before, economic geography has a wider research scope and more systematic content, which marks that economic geography has differentiated from geography and become an independent discipline."

"It is generally believed that economic geography has class, regional and comprehensive characteristics."

"It is a discipline with the regional system of economic activities as its central content. It is an important branch of human geography, including the location of economic activities, types of spatial combinations, and development processes."

"After World War II, international mainstream economic geography has experienced several major changes in research methods and perspectives~"

"For example, the measurement revolution in the 50s and 60s, the political economics school in the 70s, and the new era of regionalism we are about to face in the 80s."

“New regionalism?”

"What do you mean?" Schroeter understood. David said this in response to his deliberate mention of Paul Krugman, and raised his eyebrows.

David smiled and did not immediately reply to his question. He reached out and opened the teapot on the low table in front of him, and found that it contained newly brewed black tea.

He explained as he picked up the teapot and poured some tea for Schroter.

“New regionalism refers to the governance subjects and organizational forms composed of local governments, non-profit organizations and market entities in the region in order to better solve regional public issues. It also includes the common interests of these entities in the process of governing regional public affairs. Compliance with governance concepts and related system design.”

"Its main research topics include regional innovation systems, industrial areas, learning areas and knowledge spillovers."