Reality is far more complex and messy than many of the grander themes and explanations would have us believe.

Reality is far more complex and messy than many of the grander themes and explanations would have us believe.

A striking feature of financial service activities during the past few decades is that the financial transactions essential to the operation of the 'real' economy has become increasingly dwarfed by speculative activity.

The primary driver of final consumer demand is, of course, the level of disposable income.

Without the parallel development of systems of monetary - and credit-based exchange - there could have been no development of economies beyond the most primitive organizational forms and the most geographically restricted sales.

Innovation - the heart of technological change - is fundamentally a learning process.

One of the most striking trends, since at least the 1960's, has been for employment in services to grow far more rapidly than employment in manufacturing. It is this trend that has led to the view that developed economies have become de-industrialized and that they are now effectively service economies.