- Decisive breakthroughs in textile manufacturing and iron production were the spearheads of the industrial revolution.
- The financial revolution preceded the industrial revolution.
- It is pointless to seek a simplistic causal relationship (more sophisticated financial institutions caused growth or growth spurred on financial development). It seems perfectly plausible that the two processes were interdependent and self-reinforcing. Both processes also exhibited a distinctively evolutionaly character, with recurrent mutation (technical innovation), speciation (the creation of new kinds of firm) and punctuated equilibrium (crises that would determine which firms would survive and which would die out).