When a sassy young economist out to make a name for himself at the Asian Development Bank grilled me relentlessly for an entire afternoon, I recalled the advice Claudine had given me as we sat in her Beacon Street apartment those many months before. “Who can see twenty-five years into the future?” she had asked. “Your guess is as good as theirs. Confidence is everything.” I convinced myself I was an expert, reminding myself that I had experienced more of life in economically developing countries than many of the men — some of them twice my age — who now sat in judgment of my work.
