role for special drawing rights ( sdrs ). while i will not elaborate on each of these initiatives in all detail, i would like to argue that in pursuing our goals we have to make sure that we do not indiscriminately buy insurance against future crises. we also have to carefully consider the cost of insurance. in particular, we have to weigh this cost against that of making an effort to invest in pre - empting the failure of the system in the very first place. the sdr, for instance, is not a cure - all for the international monetary system. the crux of the system is not the international use of national currencies, but the myopic use of domestic policies for achieving short - term gain at the cost of long - run pain. assigning a more prominent role to the sdr by increasing allocations would hence by no means prevent the build - up of excessive reserves in countries which accumulate them for reasons beyond precautionary motives. it is not clear either to what extent enhanced access to imf lending reduces the incentives for the accumulation of large excess reserves. in fact, the imf has already modified its lending toolkit and multiplied its resources. a flexible credit line was introduced, as well as a precautionary credit line for countries which do not meet the high qualification requirements for the former. in the absence of a counterfactual it is impossible to give a reliable estimate of the impact of these measures on global reserve accumulation. looking at the data, however, i dare speculate that if anything the impact has been very limited. and also where the insurance motive of reserve accumulation prevails, it is not clear that enhanced access to imf lending and regional pools, sdr allocations, or other forms of global liquidity provision could reduce the stigma attached to such external financing and thus avoid the further build - up of precautionary reserves. the cost of these insurance policies, on the other hand, can be substantial. large - scale “ issuance ” of sdrs could interfere with the implementation of monetary policy. together with badly designed multilateral coordination on global liquidity conditions these could undermine central banks´ authority as the ultimate provider of liquidity and thus dangerously impinge on central bank independence across the globe. at the same time, any schemes of cross - border liquidity provision at the global or regional level need to involve central banks, because only these can provide the needed amounts of liquidity

, diane coyle notes that the uk ’ s statistical abstract for 1871 – 85 – in retrospect, the height of the industrial revolution – devoted just 12 of the 200 pages on the economy ’ s output and trade to manufacturing and transport “ commentary : modernising economic statistics : why it matters, ” national institute economic review, no. 234 ( november 2015 ). robert j. gordon, the rise and fall of american growth ( princeton up ; 2016 ). see also : juan f. jimeno, frank smets and jonathan yiangou, “ secular stagnation : a view from the eurozone, ” secular stagnation : facts, causes and cures, ed. coen teulings and richard baldwin ( cepr, 2014 ). bart van ark, mary o ’ mahony and marcel p. timmer, “ the productivity gap between europe and the united states : trends and causes ”, the journal of economic perspectives, vol. 22, no. 1 ( winter, 2008 ), pp. 25 – 44. carol corrado, jonathan haskel, cecilia jona - lasinio and massi miliano iommi, innovation and intangible investment in europe, japan, and the united states, oxford review of economic policy, vol : 29 ( oxford, 2012 ), pp. 261 – 6. carl frey and michael osborne, the future of employment : how susceptible are jobs to computerisation? ( oxford, september 2013 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches skills in logistics, ( re - ) programming, and routine or basic maintenance. are our education systems ready for that challenge? moreover, what will happen to those who are displaced by new technologies? economic theory tells us that technological gains raise disposable income and hence create new demand somewhere in the economy. but as the literature on “ hollowing out ” has shown, technological advances may lead to a polarisation of jobs – at the expense of the middleskilled. 15 and this seems to be evident also in recent employment growth seen in the euro area, with the bulk of the recent employment growth seen concentrated in the lower productivity sectors. 16 so the risk is that the one effect offsets the other : technological advances in some sectors are neutralised by gains in employment in other, lower productivity ones. that might be damaging for social cohesion. this is why the second channel is crucial : across - firm productivity growth. 17 to combine productivity growth with full employment, it ’