Why advice is sometimes best behind closed doors

CHRISTINE Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, may be complicating decision-making over a US interest rate rise through last week's advice to the Federal Reserve to hold off a rate hike to early 2016.

She may not have done much good, either, to her chances of re-election when her five-year mandate ends in July 2016.

Whether or not Ms Lagarde wishes to run for a second term is open to conjecture. Support among advanced and emerging economies alike for a new managing director - this time from Asia, Latin America or Africa - may be stoked by a feeling that the Fund has not always played a steady hand during unfolding economic debates.