Nonetheless, I doubt this is quite what Keynes had in mind as the economic possibilities for our grandchildren. If lower hours are not a full answer, retraining workers in line with their comparative advantage might be. One important dimension of this is education. School education has tended to focus on developing the core cognitive competences – for example, reading, writing and arithmetic. Smart machines have long since surpassed humans in their ability to do the first and third of these. And they are fast catching-up on the second. That begs the question of whether there are other skills where humans’ comparative advantage is greater. For example, humans are known to possess an equally-important class of non-cognitive skills – self-confidence, self-esteem, relationship-building, negotiation skills, empathy. In studies of children, these non-cognitive attributes have been found to be as, if not more, important than cognitive competences in enhancing jobs, incomes and well-being (Heckman (2007)). In a world in which machines came to dominate tasks involving core cognitive processing, the importance of, and skill premium attached to, non-cognitive skills is likely to rise. The high skill – high pay jobs of the future may involve skills better measured by EQs than IQs, by jobs creating social as much as financial value. Yet our education system, at present, has a strongly cognitive slant. Perhaps in future that will need to change, with as much effort put into cultivating social CVs as academic ones.
Shariahcompliant corporations that are listed in major global Islamic stock market indices, such as the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indices and the FTSE Global Islamic Index, are able to enhance their profiles among the prospective investors, including those with inclination towards socially responsible investment. In Malaysia, similar listing opportunities are available through the FTSE Hijrah Shariah index and the FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS Shariah index for Shariah-compliant investment, that has been designed to provide a broad benchmark for investors that wished to invest in Shariah-compliant stocks. Malaysia operates a dual financial system that comprises the conventional and the Islamic financial system. Businesses are able to select the financial offerings that best serve their requirements. While Malaysia has progressively liberalised our financial system, the liberalisation of the Islamic financial system has been at a more rapid pace. The motivation for this is to forge greater international economic and financial linkages. Liberalisation of the conventional sector has been more gradual and sequenced to ensure that the financial system promotes balanced growth while remaining stable and sustainable. The robust legal and regulatory framework, together with the availability of a large and diverse pool of talent and expertise in Islamic finance, forms the solid components in the system to meet the requirements of businesses. There is also Shariah certainty in Islamic finance through a robust Shariah governance framework, which comprises Shariah committees at the industry level and the Shariah Advisory Council at the regulatory level.