Bringing Manufacturing Home: Implications for Emerging Markets of the Reindustrialisation of the Core OECD

Abstract

What effect will new manufacturing technologies like 3-dimensional (3D) printing have on emerging markets? Emerging markets like India will probably see a net positive effect. China will almost certainly lose out during the next wave of manufacturing. Upper-income, OECD countries – particularly Germany, the U.S., and Japan – will likely continue producing high-value goods. Because these economies have a strong skilled labor and service-based orientation, they will be able to respond quickly to additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing, meaning, printing products, will disrupt the old, low wage, supply-chain-driven approach to cost competition and economic development. Roughly one third of all manufacturing subsectors will undergo radical change as a result of additive manufacturing.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, 3D printing, OECD deindustrialization

JEL Classification: D24, R38