Why, a French economist of course. And one, Jean Tirole, with strong views about how to manage the excesses of corporate power in the modern global economy. Tirole’s area of specialism is not new. Back in the Wealth of Nations in 1776, Adam Smith railed against the abuses of monopolies and cartels, noting: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” The Sherman anti-trust laws in the US were used just before the first world war to break up Standard Oil.