Acknowledgments

The ideas in this book reflect observations I have made from working in finance since 1988 and what I have learned from many teachers. The City of London is not known for the quality of its business managers, but I was lucky early on to have had wise managers who supported my curiosity—in particular, Chris Anthony, Thorkild Juncker, Stephen Lewis, Jan Loeys, Malcolm Roberts and Stan Shelton.

My ideas would not have developed backbone without the encouragement of a handful of academics. I benefitted from the teaching, collaboration, and friendship of John Eatwell, Charles Goodhart, Stephany Griffith-Jones, Richard Portes, Hyun Song Shin, John Williamson, and Charles Wyplosz. The reality, if not the study, of finance depends on human behavior and I have learned a lot of psychology from discussions with my brother, the consultant psychiatrist Dr. Rajendra Persaud—though as a result of these discussions he is now a far-better economist than I am a psychologist.

Although I have often been motivated by what I thought was wrong with financial policy, a number of policy makers have listened and encouraged me to go further—especially Charlie Bean, Mark Carney, Winston Dookeran, Mario Draghi, Tim Geithner, Aerdt Houben, Jean-Pierre Landau, Francesco Papadia, Dr. Y.V. Reddy, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Andrew Sheng, Adair Turner, Philip Turner, Marion Williams, DeLisle Worrell, and Brian Wynter.

Many people have ideas swirling around in their head with few opportunities to reflect on them and give them structure. I was given that opportunity by being appointed a visiting scholar at the IMF, then Mercer Memorial Chair in Commerce at Gresham College, and later chair or member of a number of policy commissions and committees. There are many people who were involved in my appointments, and, once appointed, in helping me make the most of my term. In addition to those already mentioned, I am grateful to Barbara Anderson, Mark Blythe, Anna Gelpern, Saul Estrin, Eric Helleiner, Richard Higgott, Manmohan Singh Kumar, Marco Lagana, Jose-Antonio Ocampo, Ila Patnaik, Len Seabroke, and Joe Stiglitz.

Many others helped in the early development of the ideas in this book, including Nick Barr, Claudio Borio, John Nugée, Andrew Palmer, Martin Wolf, and Pam Woodall. My ideas would have been left in my head or incoherently spread across a number of articles were it not for Ajay Shah. He listened to the ideas, robustly debated them, and repeatedly told me to write a book. When I showed reluctance, he wrote up a publisher’s outline of the book I would write—as opposed to the one he would write—and sent it to me. Who does that?

Every Sunday growing up, my father, Professor the Honorable Bishnodat Persaud, would give me a random subject to think about that he retrieved from his worn, red notebook and ask me to come back in an hour and tell him about it. It made me unafraid to think, a priceless gift, reflected I hope in this book. My mother, the novelist Dr. Lakshmi Persaud, taught me many things including a love of trying to explain difficult ideas through good writing and speaking. I owe everything to both of them.

Authors often say that their book would not be the same were it not for someone and that someone is my wife and collaborator in everything. If ever my writing appears lucid, this is because Ingrid Persaud, novelist, artist, and former legal academic, took apart the original tortured sentence and made it more decisive. She now has an even-clearer understanding of the topic than I do. My editors at Springer, Susan McDermott, Rita Fernando, Jana Weinstein, and earlier Jeff Olson, showed patience, assistance and forgiveness above the call of duty. Despite eveyone’s best efforts, the remaining errors are mine.