In what the White House is calling a jobs summit, President Obama is sitting down with economists, business leaders, labor leaders, and small business owners tomorrow to discuss ways to battle unemployment.  And Christina Romer, chair of the President's Council of Economics Advisers, shares one of her goals--to generate ideas that encourage the private sector to work with government to generate more jobs:

Many ideas under discussion build on partnerships with the private sector. Given the budget deficits this administration inherited, it is critical to leverage scarce public funds. More fundamentally, when businesses seem hesitant to hire and productivity is surging, we need to harness the private sector, bringing large and small firms in off the sidelines to boost job creation.

One idea is to give direct incentives for homeowners to retrofit their homes to improve energy efficiency. This approach would be convenient and certain, and it could encourage millions of homeowners to make cost-effective investments they might not have done for years, if ever. It could help both stimulate the manufacture of retrofit products and increase construction employment. Others have suggested incentives to help small businesses invest, grow and create jobs. This could include measures to restore the flow of credit for small businesses and targeted tax cuts. In these types of ways, a moderate and targeted investment by the government might be leveraged into significant employment gains and purchasing power by small businesses.

Direct government investments can also play an important role. We've already seen from the Recovery Act that spending on infrastructure—everything from roads and bridges to schools and municipal buildings—is an effective way to put people back to work while creating lasting investments that raise future productivity.

All these ideas are just that—ideas to be discussed, refined and evaluated. Action on any measures to spur job creation will be worked out with Congress after careful study, and will be done in a fiscally responsible way. But it is important to use Thursday's Jobs Forum at the White House as a chance to confront the challenges our workers and firms face, and explore creative, cost-effective solutions.

Read Romer's full op-ed here.