The idea was never for me to be a career bureaucrat or career technocrat; it was more about where I could implement ideas and reform programs.

I am an academic, and I have always made it clear that my ultimate home is in the realm of ideas.

If developed countries' citizens want to feel slightly better about their economies' slow growth and high unemployment, they should contemplate how much worse matters could be without the institutions that they have.

Politicians know that structural reforms - to increase competition, foster innovation, and drive institutional change - are the way to tackle structural impediments to growth. But they know that while the pain from reform is immediate, gains are typically delayed and their beneficiaries uncertain.

I don't think policy makers surprise unnecessarily. You don't pick surprise as a part of your policy. Markets value a certain amount of predictability. But there are certain areas where surprise is a tool.

Competition is like a treadmill. If you stand still, you get swept off. But when you run, you can never really get ahead of the treadmill and cover new terrain - so you never run faster than the speed that is set.