We know that because labour’s share of the national income pie is similar today to 1750. th  Of course, it is not ideas and innovation from the 18 century that has sustained growth over the subsequent period. Although the innovation process is continuous, historians often point to three distinct waves – three th  Industrial Revolutions. The second came in the latter part of the 19 century with the emergence of GPTs  11 12 13  For example, Romer (1990) describes a theoretical model of growth based around innovation. Bresnahan and Trajtenberg (1995). For example, Mokyr (2011) discusses Britain during the Industrial Revolution. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  4  such as electricity, the internal combustion engine and sanitation. The third came in the middle of the th  20 century with new GPTs such as computing, digitisation and the internet. 14  Yet in each case the playbook was familiar from the first Industrial Revolution. The emergence of a new strain of GPTs resulted in an outward shift in the production possibility frontier and capital-deepening. With higher levels of investment in physical and human capital, the productivity of companies, the wages of workers and the living standards of societies continued their Northerly ascent. The Golden Era continued. Some people are now discussing the next innovation wave, a so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. The GPTs driving this are likely to include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, automation, robotics, 3D-printing and nano-technology.
Mr. Davies gives his personal view of EMU Speech by the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Howard Davies, at the EFMA Conference on the Single Currency in Brussels on 16/12/96. Like many British men of my generation, I spent a good part of my spare time as a boy involved with the Scouting movement, first as a Wolf Cub, then as a Boy Scout. I have to confess that I have forgotten many of the useful things I learned in the Boy Scouts. I can no longer light a camp-fire using only two sticks. I can no longer tie a clove hitch. But I can remember the Boy Scout’s motto - ‘Be Prepared’. And that motto strikes me as a useful injunction to bear in mind, as we approach the D-Day for Economic and Monetary Union of 1 January 1999. It applies, I think, just as much to those who may, for one reason or another, find themselves outside the first group of EMU countries, as it does to those who firmly intend to surf on the first wave. The preparations, though, may be slightly different in each case. Now some of you may think, if you read the British press, or hear echoes of the British political debate on EMU through the media elsewhere in Europe, that in present circumstances one of the other pieces of advice which Lord Baden-Powell handed down to Boy Scouts who followed him would be more appropriate.