Nearly two and a half centuries ago, Adam Smith published the Research on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. It set out principles that would become the basis for economic thinking about value creation and how to grow it, and the rules to be adopted to achieve these goals. Today, it is wealth creation and not wealth itself, built up over the years, that has become the focus of economic thinking and political debate. Growth, the increase in the wealth produced, has become the objective of governments, which have made it the main tool for improving the ...