Hannan: "Why is Austria doing so well?"

Writer, journalist and Conservative MEP for South East England, Daniel Hannan — who was here in Vienna last weekend for the 10^th annual European Resource Bank meeting — raises a very provocative question in a recent column for the UK’s The Telegraph: How can Austria be doing so well economically, given that it exhibits many of the characteristics and qualities associated with “economic sclerosis”? Some of the explanations offered by his friends at the meeting ranged from culture to education, geography and size. But none of these fully accounts for the country’s success. Is it just a matter of time? Or is it doing something right? Hannan ends his column by asking readers for their explanations; we’d like to do the same: Why is it that Austria exhibits so few of the maladies seen in most of Western Europe?