And without any grand programme, Mr Smith is also cutting the number of basic car platforms (the chassis and drive-train mechanical bits that make the wheels go round) from 16 to eight, in line with best practice at firms such as Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota.

ECONOMIST: The quiet man

Again, blame inflation and protectionism: they isolated Brazilian firms from competition and thus from best practice and from sources of innovation.

ECONOMIST: Measuring productivity

Governments could define best practice on dealing with information flows and the processing of data, just as they require firms to label processed foods with the ingredients or impose public-health standards.

ECONOMIST: Regulators are having to rethink their brief