The Economic Forces Behind Deindustrialization: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth study of deindustrialization and to systematically analyze the reasons why the world's most economically successful countries have experienced a sharp decline in relative manufacturing employment over the last decades. A large strand of empirical literature on deindustrialization aims at quantifying the relative importance of the economic forces behind deindustrialization, especially of the 'internal' and 'external' factors. While this study does not contradict the widespread belief that internal factors are quantitatively more important in explaining deindustrialization in advanced countries taken as a whole, our results, based on both static and dynamic techniques and panel data on 18 OECD countries from 1977 to 2007, however suggest that the role of globalization may be revised upwards when resorting to appropriate and welldefined indicators of trade in manufactures.

Turkish Economy in the 2000s: Productivity Changes in the Manufacturing Industry

“…Even though emerging economies have become significant players in the world trade and global value chains (Gereffi, 2015) and manufacturing activities have shifted from the developed economies to developing economies, the developing economies have lately started to experience a deindustrialization process (excluding Asia), before achieving sustainable industrialization (Rodrik, 2016). The deindustrialization process is simply defined as the widespread and systematic withdrawal or the reduction in capital investments causing a reduction in the productive capacity 2 (Van Neuss, 2016). This might be a problem in the future for those countries in terms of the process of catch-up with developed economies.…”

Industrial Brownfield Sites in the Alps. A first Quantitative Overview and Potential Implications for Regional Development

“…According to the European Concerted Action on Brownfields and Economic Regeneration Network 1 (CABERNET), brownfield sites can be defined as "derelict or underused […] sites that have been affected by the former [industrial] uses of the site and surrounding land; may have real or perceived contamination problems; are mainly [found] in developed urban areas; and require intervention to bring them back to beneficial use" (Oliver et al, 2005). Major economic structural changes such as the end of mass production and its replacement with flexible specialization (Piore and Sabel, 1984), the rapid labour productivity growth in manufacturing due to technological progress (Rowthorn and Ramaswamy, 1997) and the globalization of markets and trade (van Neuss, 2016) have provided, starting from the late 1970s and further by the end of the century, the framework conditions for the rise and diffusion of industrial brownfields in developed urban areas.…”

Aree industriali dismesse nelle Alpi. Una prima panoramica quantitativa e potenziali implicazioni per lo sviluppo regiona

“…(Oliver et al, 2005). Rilevanti cambiamenti strutturali a livello economico quali la fine della produzione di massa e la sua sostituzione con la specializzazione flessibile (Piore and Sabel, 1984), la rapida crescita della produttività del lavoro nell'industria grazie al progresso tecnologico (Rowthorn and Ramaswamy, 1997) e la globalizzazione dei mercati e del commercio (van Neuss, 2016) hanno fornito, a partire dalla fine degli anni Settanta e sempre più verso la fine del secolo, le condizioni quadro per lo sviluppo e la diffusione dei siti industriali dismessi nelle aree urbane sviluppate.…”