Page - (000040) - in Disrupted Development and the Future of Inequality in the Age of Automation
Image of the Page - (000040) -
Text of the Page - (000040) -
30 L. SCHLOGL AND A. SUMNER
up to $4000 per capita. This may simply be disguised under or unem-
ployment though (or a statistical artefact). The rise in manufacturing
shares in East Asia’s GDP over the period is dramatic, though this is less
the case for East Asia’s manufacturing shares of employment. Further,
the regional manufacturing shares are consistent with deindustrialization
in employment shares and value-added though it is more a case of a pla-
teau than a substantial downturn at least in the regional aggregates. It
would appear even within the developing world the plateau is appear-
ing earlier and earlier ($3000–$4000 for Latin America versus $1500 for
East Asia). And service shares of GDP and employment are very much
on an upward trend in general.
Second, growth in East Asia has been driven by an inter-sectoral
movement toward manufacturing but services have been a much more
important contributor to growth in all other regions. In East Asia capital
accumulation (physical capital stock) played a major role and that role
has been increasing over time which suggests an increase in the capital
intensity of growth. In contrast, capital accumulation is relatively less
important vis-Ă -vis other factors of production to growth in the other
regions.
Third, while in East Asia there have been substantial changes in the
composition exports—large falls of in shares of agricultural raw material
exports and food exports, and rises in shares of manufacturing exports
and shares of high-tech exports—this is not the case elsewhere. That
said, in East Asia there is a visible plateauing of shares of manufactures
in exports, and there is a peak and subsequent fall of shares of high-tech
manufactures shares of exports. Persistent trade surpluses appear to be
regionally elusive outside East Asia. In both Latin America and sub-Saha-
ran Africa the trade position fluctuates from surpluses to deficits and back
and South Asia has a persistent deficit for all of the period under study.
notes
1. One general limitation of any such measures is specifically, as Fischer
(2011, 2014) discusses whether productivity can be accurately measured in
a complex economy give that measuring productivity relies on value-added
account data, but such data is a combination of output and prices/wages.
So, most measurements for productivity show price or wage differentials
not actual effort, output, or skill. This is an even bigger problem in the
service sector as the comparability of services is more problematic because
Disrupted Development and the Future of Inequality in the Age of Automation