new goods and services available to businesses and consumers. 4 for example, when smaller electric motors replaced single - power sources, such as steam or water power, in manufacturing facilities, it became feasible to reorganize the layouts of plants to optimize the flow of materials rather than the distribution of power. 5 and the advent of air conditioning significantly expanded opportunities for economic development in the warmer regions of the united states and the world. however, in all cases, these developments evolved over a long period and required firms to make collateral investments in research and development, organizational structure, and employee training. these investments in learning how to make the best use of new technologies have been dubbed intangible capital, to distinguish them from investments in physical goods like new machines or facilities. in the case of information and communication technologies, new economic research suggests that the investments in associated intangible capital - - figuring out what to do with the computer once it ’ s out of the box - - are quite important indeed. 6 in my view, important investments in intangible capital remain to be made, as much still remains to be learned about how to harness these technologies most effectively. thus, it should not be surprising that the benefits of these technologies have taken a long time to show up in the productivity statistics. this research also suggests that the current productivity revival still has some legs, as the full economic benefits of recent technological changes have not yet been completely realized. looking to the future as graduates of mit, you will be at the heart of this critical process of developing new technologies and taking them to the marketplace. we are in an age in which technology and its fruits will be a dominant force not only in our economic lives but in the cultural, social, political, and personal aspects of our lives as well. your training at mit equips each of you exceptionally well to take the fullest advantage of the professional and personal opportunities that technological innovation and change will create. each of you, because of your youth, your talent, your demonstrated commitment to learning, and your personal and intellectual attainments during your time at mit, will soon find - - to paraphrase shakespeare - - that the world is your oyster. i hope that you will contribute in some measure to economic progress, whether in the united states or elsewhere ; and i hope you find some measure of financial reward. but the world has a great deal more to offer than money, and a key question each of you will face repeatedly in your

, market participants, and scholars — and give the public the means and the opportunity to provide meaningful feedback on our work. some steps are already underway. we established a new expectation that all fsb policy recommendations will be open for at least 60 days of public comment, instead of the shorter periods used in the past. we began a recent effort around the differences in regulatory environments and market conditions across jurisdictions — known as “ market fragmentation " — by convening key stakeholders and academics for a full - day workshop, which i hope will be the rule for future projects, not the exception. earlier this year, we released publicly the fsb work program for the first time. 3 this broad engagement is essential to understanding new developments that are relevant to financial stability. take, for example, the “ fintech ” trends i discussed in remarks last week, to which the fsb is dedicating significant attention. claims about fintech run the gamut from the utopian to the apocalyptic — yet the mantle of fintech covers a wide range of new business models, products, and trends. their contours and their impact also vary across national boundaries, from mobile wallets in kenya, to online mortgages in the united states, to money market funds founded by technology companies in china. understanding one of these new uses of technology is not the same as understanding all of them. identifying the risks and opportunities they pose requires context, information, and insight that can only come from a variety of stakeholders with experience developing, using, and monitoring them. i will continue to seek ways to invite and encourage engagement during my chairmanship, and to give the public a clearer and fuller view of fsb ’ s decisionmaking process. few efforts are closer to the heart of our collective work or to the accountability and trust that the fsb helps foster. vigilance trust and accountability are also prerequisites for the fsb to pursue its mission. the first prong of our mandate, now a decade old, is to “ assess vulnerabilities affecting the global financial system, and identify and review... the regulatory, supervisory, and related actions needed to address them.... " 4 the fsb ’ s primary role, and its principal contribution to international financial regulation, is to look forward — to see past the issues and practices of the day, and identify new vulnerabilities, long before they lead to widespread economic distress. the fsb ’ s standing committee on assessment of