Search

• The consensus that manufacturing was the strategic road for development has recently been challenged. • We constructed an original and extensive database on the world manufacturing production, that provides information about value added and employment for 200 countries, of which 160 developing countries, for the 1970–2018 period. • The study does not reveal evidence of a recent decline of manufacturing in developing countries, including or not China. Rather we document a continuous expansion of manufacturing employment in the developing world, that accounts now for 82 % of the world employment, while the share of the developing economies in the world output has doubled over the period. • Since 2010, we observe and we quantify a new pattern. Manufacturing employment does not increase any more in China, while it has continued to grow at the same pace in the rest of the developing world. • Our findings show that manufacturing has continued to play a key role in economic development. Thus, low-income countries should not give up industrialization strategies and should learn from the recent experiences of rapid industrialization and growth. The "rise of the Rest" and almost all successes in economic development have relied on late industrialization. However, the consensus that manufacturing was the strategic road for development has recently been challenged. This paper addresses the issue of the status of manufacturing for economic development in the current period. To clarify whether the importance of manufacturing in developing countries has declined or not in the 21st Century, we constructed an original and extensive database on the world manufacturing production, that provides information about value added and employment for 200 countries, of which 160 Developing countries, for the 1970–2018 period. The study does not reveal evidence of a recent decline of manufacturing in developing countries, including or not China. Rather we document a continuous expansion of manufacturing employment in the developing world, that accounts now for 82 % of the world employment, while the share of the developing economies in the world output has doubled over the period. Since 2010, we observe and we quantify a new pattern. Manufacturing employment does not increase any more in China, while it has continued to grow at the same pace in the rest of the developing world. Our findings show that manufacturing has continued to play a key role in economic development. Thus, low-income countries should not give up industrialization strategies and should learn from the recent experiences of rapid industrialization and growth. In the near future, the upgrading of China's industrial structure will enlarge the windows of opportunities in manufacturing for late-comers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We present a methodology for relating traded products to aggregate country indicators. • We identify imported and exported products that correlate with growth and income per capita. • Catching-up economies characterized by frugality in consumer demand and the prominence of mass-production industries. • Mature economies distinguished by the importance of consumer demand and the export of knowledge-intensive goods. Using a novel methodology to relate traded products to aggregate country indicators, this paper identifies imported and exported goods that correlate with growth and income per capita, and based upon that, determines the productive and demand structure of mature and catching-up economies. The methodology in question first uses Principal Component Analysis on the products that countries specialize in importing and exporting, to reduce the number of variables that will, later, be linearly related to income and growth using Canonical Correlation Analysis. It is shown that fast growing or catching-up economies are characterized by the export of mass-produced manufactured goods, and the import of capital and intermediates – but not consumer goods. Frugality in consumption demand and congruence between exports and imports explain the high growth rates of catching-up or transitioning economies. In contrast, high income and slow growth mature economies are characterized by the export of goods whose production requires advanced technological capabilities. Their demand structure is characterized by the prominence of consumption rather than means of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper documents developments in Indian economic performance and the role of structural change in this performance. • Manufacturing is dominated by informal labor, which has a deleterious effect on overall manufacturing performance. • Productivity growth is driven by within sector growth, with positive contributions of formal and informal activities to this. • Labor reallocation to the informal segment of the manufacturing sector is growth reducing in the Indian manufacturing sector. • A shift to more productive informal activities across sub-sectors exists, but this doesn't offset the negative within effect. This paper examines the role of structural change in India's performance, and in particular the role of the informal segment in the stagnant growth of the Indian manufacturing sector. Using counterfactual analysis – including a modified shift-share approach – the paper considers to what extent the informal sector can help explain the poor performance of Indian manufacturing over the period 1980-2011. The results suggest that the informal segment of manufacturing has been a drag on overall manufacturing productivity growth, with the informal manufacturing segment unable to provide a productivity bonus when absorbing workers from the agricultural sector. Results from the shift-share analysis indicate that labor reallocation to the informal segment of the manufacturing sector is growth-reducing, with structural change being the main source of this reduction, an effect which in turn is driven by movements of employment within manufacturing sub-sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article identifies foundational principles of the structural analysis of economic, political and social systems, and explores their bearing on the study of structural transformations. In doing so, it delves especially into the conceptual resources provided by strands of economic theory. Particular importance is given to the relative positions of socio-economic groups, productive sectors, and institutions; the relative invariance of certain patterns of interdependence vis-à-vis others; and the view of economic dynamics as structural transformation subject to the condition of relative invariance. The article goes on to introduce and discuss a collection of papers that explore the relationship between structures and transformations in economic, political and social systems. A fundamental theme is the relationship between the range of transformations made possible by structures and the individual or collective actions taking place within those structures, which lead to some structural transformations instead of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]