For over 60 years, the United States has reigned as the leading international force in academics, politics, economics and technical innovation.

FORBES: Language Learning Helps Businesses Compete Globally

According to Jian Yang, of Auckland University, New Zealand, nationalism plays less of a part in technical areas such as economics, which may matter as much, if not more, to China's leaders.

ECONOMIST: Less biding and hiding

This led to part-time study at a technical school and then evening attendance at the London School of Economics, working as an accountant by day.

ECONOMIST: A remarkable colleague

The greens thought they had won the intellectual war over the economics of road building after the government's technical committee SACTRA warned in the 1990s that there was no guarantee that road building would stimulate jobs.

BBC: Campaigners angry at Growth and Infrastructure Bill

But BP's failure to stop the Gulf spill is raising concerns that the industry was reaching beyond its technical capabilities and that an avalanche of regulations could change the economics of the game.

WSJ: Drilling Ban Reverberates Through Industry

The reason why economists in the late 19th century and much of the 20th put the rational utility-maximising individual at the heart of their models was not that they thought that economics should avoid looking into the brain, but because they lacked the technical means to do so, says Mr Colander.

ECONOMIST: Neuroeconomics: Do economists need brains? | The

Well, Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt, who studies health care economics and blogs about it for the New York Times, has derived what he calls a technical definition of hospital charges.

NPR: 6 min 38 sec