You have little representation of young black men in the business sector, so you have children growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods who don't hear discussions at the dinner table about what goes on in business. It's almost as if we have two nations.

The main cause of Europe's deep fall - the losses of inclusion, job satisfaction and wage growth - is the devastating slowdown of productivity that began in the late 1990s and struck large swaths of the continent. It holds down the growth of wages rates, and it depresses employment.

In countries operating a largely capitalist system, there does not appear to be a wide understanding among its actors and overseers of either its advantages or its hazards.

I think the 19th century is an extraordinary period with a welling up of creativity and all kinds of experimentation and exploration going on at least until 1940.

I studied economics and made it my career for two reasons. The subject was and is intellectually fascinating and challenging, particularly to someone with taste and talent for theoretical reasoning and quantitative analysis.

I've always been a bit of a decorator. I think if I wasn't a singer I'd probably be in stage setting or interior design or something. I like clutter and I'm quite visually greedy. I can't have things to be plain; I have to have things looking interesting... maybe I'm just a frustrated interior designer stuck in a singing career.

Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

My transition from scientist to entrepreneur? Some would say that I still haven't made that transition.