In news greeted with cheers in economics faculties and think-tanks around the world, Manmohan Singh, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has become India’s Prime Minister, after Sonia Gandhi’s decision to turn the job down. Singh led the bank from September 1982 to January 1985. Manmohan Singh, long a familiar figure at academic seminars, has managed to maintain his academic interests while also holding down a string of high-pressure jobs ­ he was of course the chief architect of India’s economic reform programme when he was finance minister in the 1990s. He used the crisis of 1991-92 brilliantly to instigate reforms that laid the basis for India’s remarkable and continuing growth.

He is personally close to economists like Amartya Sen, the Indian Nobel-Prize Laureate, while not sharing all of Sen’s trendy New Labour views.

According to an article on Singh’s time at the Reserve Bank of India, published by The Economic Times “if you ask how autonomous he was as the central bank governor, I would say that while he went with the broad political stance, he never hesitated in exerting his independence on various issues."

Although, the article claims, most RBI employees who got to know Singh have now retired, certain personal details about him still amuse them; “He used to hardly sit in the office… we found him standing even while browsing through files. And no one climbed the steps as fast as he did. He almost ran, leaving ...other officials breathless,” says one employee.

DO CENTRAL BANKERS MAKE GOOD PRIME MINISTERS?

It seems that Manmohan Singh may be following a tradition of central bank governors moving to take the country’s top post.

Central banks have not in the past been seen as launching pads for political careers but increasing numbers are making the transition from running a central bank to head of state or government.

Among the first to tread this illustrious path was Mauno Koivisto, governor of the Bank of Finland from 1968-82 and President of Finland from 1982-94.

In Africa the trend continued. Dr Alassane Ouattara held the post of governor of the Central Bank of West African States from 1988-90. He was subsequently elected prime minister of the Ivory Coast, serving from 1990-93. Returning to his economist roots he moved on to become deputy managing director at the IMF - a post he held from 1994-99.

Carlo Ciampi, governor of the Banca D’Italia from 1979-1993, joined the ranks in 1999 when he was elected president of Italy.

Josef Tosovsky, head of the Czechoslovak central bank at the time of the velvet revolution, went on to head the Czech central bank before becoming prime minister of the Czech Republic in 1997; Tosovsky is now spreading the gospel of price stability as chairman of the Financial Stability Institute, part of the BIS in Basel.

Einars Repse former president of the Bank of Latvia, became prime minister of the country for a while. Grigori Marchenko, former head of the central bank in Kazakhstan, left late last year to become deputy prime minister.

Don Brash, former governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand could yet be named prime minister of New Zealand.

Viktor Yushchenko, a previous head of the National Bank of Ukraine, is a presidential candidate, and the indestructible Viktor Geraschenko, three times governor of the Russian central bank, also harboured ambitions to become president of Russia, before taking the rather better paid job of chairman of Yukos, the giant energy company.

Some people have a foot in each camp, such as the deputy prime minister of Singapore who is also chairman of the MAS (see note below). But then he is son of the founder of the country.

Readers will doubtless be able to furnish further examples.

In the related field of international economic policy making we have the current example of Horst Koehler, who left the IMF job to take up a nomination as president of Germany ­ he was elected last Sunday.

UNDIPLOMATIC KOEHLER

Talking of Koehler, the new man in Berlin is making waves already. Normally seen as little more than a ceremonial post, in the past few weeks Koehler, as president-elect of his country, has called for further action to turn around Germany's stagnant economy - greatly upsetting the centrist and left-leaning Germans. He says the Chancellor Schroder’s reforms are “only a first step”. Many voters on the contrary consider them to be the last straw.

Regarding the unpopular question of imposing longer working hours on Germans who have got used to working for no longer than 35 hours a week, Koehler flatly says: "It's necessary." Koehler argues also that the idea of charging fees to students attending Germany's vast and cosseted universities should be discussed.

He sometimes seems to be talking as if he is still head of the IMF.

But his foreign policy views (which he could never speak publicly about at the IMF) are clearly very popular at home. After years in Washington, Koehler is bluntly undiplomatic about his analysis of the US-led war in Iraq.

He says the US had "behaved arrogantly" in Baghdad and that "power has gone to the heads of the Americans."

Which all makes one think the US administration was probably quite pleased to see the back of Koehler. After all, the IMF is supposed to support US policy ­ otherwise, what’s the use of it?