The original flaw may be technical, not political Almost two years ago Arvind Subramanian, then India's chief economic adviser, published a little-noticed passage in the finance ministry's annual economic survey. The previous two years posed a "puzzle", he wrote. India had reported miracle growth in GDP (averaging 7.5%) despite miserable growth in investment, exports and credit. He looked for co..
Europe works in strange ways "The longest lunch in history" is how Jonathan Powell, an adviser to Tony Blair, a former British prime minister, has described the appointment of the first head of the European Central Bank (ECB) in 1998. The French, keen to have their man in the job, had convinced the Germans that Wim Duisenberg, a Dutchman, should serve only half of his eight-year term before maki..
Better to fight the next one than the last With a deep voice and physique of a former American-football player, Greg Hayes, boss of United Technologies Corp (UTC), does not seem like the soft sort. But the ego is delicate. As he told Schumpeter in February while explaining his decision to carve UTC, a conglomerate dating back to the 1920s, into three parts, it was hard for him emotionally to acc..