Rarely has the arrival of a new US Treasury secretary been awaited with such anticip­ation as that of Hank Paulson, the former chairman and chief exec­utive of Goldman Sachs who will be sworn in by President George W. Bush on Monday.

Mr Paulson’s appointment has already lifted expectations of what could be achieved on the economy in the remaining two and a half years of the Bush presidency – with talk even of a possible renewed effort to reform Social Security, the main US retirement programme.