To get out of the current crisis, “we need a source of demand, we need a driver,” he said, noting it has to come from business spending.

We need somebody to invent the equivalent of the railroad or Internet to get that happening again, he said.

His current views have been coloured by research showing that recessions triggered by financial crises persist longer, and the recovery depends heavily on the crisis-hit country scoring big export gains and large trade surpluses.