A well-regarded scholar of monetary and financial institutions, Hellwig has decided to leave UCLA and return to Europe not to his native Germany, however, but to Toulouse University s department of economics in southern France. We Europeans look at a global map, he says, and we see new centers of excellence emerging in Europe, though not necessarily in our countries of origin. No, ima tu još problema It will take years before European universities can really compete, he says. The mistake in Europe is to try to improve mediocre existing universities, Zingales believes. It would be more efficient to create brand-new elite institutions. But this would collide with the European passion for equality, which has kept universities open to every student, regardless of ability, and made selection a dirty word a major stumbling block on the path of higher academic achievement.