You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Sarah Montague.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the programme and I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk. I'm Sarah Montague. My guest today has a reputation for telling uncomfortable economic truths.

He famously predicted the global financial crisis of 2008.

Now, Raghuram Rajan says capitalism is under threat.

And if world leaders want to save liberal democracies from a surge in populism,

they need to give more power to local communities

and take it away from big governments and big business.

When he left his job as governor of India's central bank,

he said it was better to be a doer than an advisor. Now the superstar central banker is being

talked of as one of the frontrunners to be the next governor of the Bank of England. Would he rather

do that job than advise in another? Aghu Rajan, welcome to Hard Talk.

Thanks for having me.

That quote from you, better to be a doer than an advisor.

What is it that you want to do?

Well, I wanted to do at that time was really turn around people's view of India.

I thought there was a lot of potential for growth.

There were reforms that were easy that we should have done. And we proceeded to do it when I was central bank governor. So that was the doer part of it then.

And in being an economist, is it the same thing more widely? Is it improving people's

lives? What is the doing? Well, I think that is the aim, should be the aim of every economist,

right? You should be able to persuade people that there is a way to improve their lives. Often

it means undertaking reforms which are not so obvious,

...