Failure to ratify the Meech Lake agreement could leave the 56-year-old Mr. Bourassa, a Harvard-educated economist, vulnerable to a surge of separatist feeling.

A Harvard-educated economist, he believes they have become an "entrenched interest group", exaggerating the scale of suffering in order to drum up donations.

Harvard-educated economists are indispensable for the future, but they can't make a disintegrating command economy work, not even in the old inefficient manner.

Mr. Cavallo, a Harvard-educated economist who was once Argentina's economy minister, fell into disfavor after the economy collapsed.

A Harvard-educated economist, she was in charge of developing cars like the SLK roadster before she was promoted to head the company's finance and telecommunications subsidiary.

Mr. Cavallo, a Harvard-educated economist, was economy minister from 1991 to 1996 and again for nine difficult months last year.

But Mr. Bourassa, a Harvard-educated economist, decided otherwise.

Mr. Cavallo, who is 55 and a Harvard-educated economist, was Argentina's economic minister from 1991 to 1996 and for nine months last year.

However, the Harvard-educated economist, known for his fiery rhetoric, refused to budge.

One of those opponents was a Harvard-educated economist and political maverick named Subramanian Swamy.