Because technology and trade are constantly evolving and can lead to rapid shifts in production, the commitment to reskilling all workers must be continual. In a job market subject to frequent, radical changes, people’s prospects depend on direct and creative engagement with global markets. Lifelong learning, ever-greening skills and cooperative training will become more important than ever. Finally, in an age where anyone can produce anything anywhere through 3-D printing, where anyone can broadcast their performance globally or sell to China whatever the size of their business, there is an opportunity for mass employment through mass creativity. Technology platforms such as taskrabbit, Alibaba, etsy, and Sama can help give smaller-scale producers and service providers a direct stake in global markets. Smaller scale firms can by-pass big corporates and engage in a form of artisanal globalisation; a revolution that could bring cottage industry full circle. Indeed, why doesn’t the G20 pursue global free trade for Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs)? xxx  Global free trade for SMEs, connected via such platforms, holds out the prospect of a more inclusive form of global commerce with the individual at its centre. VII. Conclusion: The Current Monetary Policy Outlook Allow me to conclude by touching on the current outlook for monetary policy. The MPC indicated in the spring that the impact of a vote to leave the EU on inflation would be the product of its impact on demand, supply and the exchange rate. And it stressed then that the implications for monetary policy would not be automatic.
iv Latest data available from the World Wealth and Income Database suggest income shares of the top 1% of: 18% US (2015); 13% UK (2012); 8% Australia (2013); 8% Canada (2013); 10% Ireland (2009). See also: Atkinson, A, Piketty, T, and Saez, E, 2011, “Top Incomes in the Long Run of History”, Journal of Economic Literature, 49(1), 2011, 3-71. v Saez, E and Zuchman, G (2015), “Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data”. vi Milanovic, B. (2016), Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, Harvard. vii As my colleague Ben Broadbent has pointed out, this explains why rising real house prices did not result in large increases in the Gini measure of wealth inequality: compared to financial assets, housing is more evenly distributed among the population, so rising house prices tend to benefit the median in the wealth distribution. See Broadbent, B (2016), “The distributional implications of low structural interest rates and some remarks about monetary policy trade-offs”, speech at the Society of Business Economists Annual Conference, November. viii Credit Suisse Research Institute (2014), Global Wealth Databook 2014, London. See also Alvaredo, F., Atkinson, A. and Morelli, S. (2016), “The Challenge of Measuring UK Wealth Inequality in the 2000s”, Fiscal Studies, 37(1). ix Gardiner, L. (2016), “Stagnation Generation: the case for renewing the intergenerational contract”, http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/stagnation-generation-the-case-for-renewing-the-intergenerational-contract x Hood, A (2016), “The outlook for living standards”, IFS post-Autumn Statement 2016 briefing, Institute for Fiscal Studies.