It’s long been accepted that emerging Asian economies owe much of their success to an emphasis on education, but a few anecdotes aired at Jackson Hole underlined the point. Arminio Frago, a former governor of Brazil’s central bank who now runs a hedge fund, noted that Brazil and South Korea once had the same per-capita gross domestic product. Now, South Korea’s is over twice that of Brazil’s. By way of explanation, he noted that the average Korean has 13 years of school, while in Brazil the figure is six years, and the education is not very high quality. Rakesh Mohan, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, noted that Tokyo has 113 universities; Beijing has 59. – Greg Ip