Behind the Curve - by Robert Lawrence (Paperback)

About the Book

This book demonstrates how structural forces have produced the decline in manufacturing jobs, and these forces are not likely to be reversed. Analyzing the effects of trade, technological change, production efficiencies, and consumer spending patterns on manufacturing employment, shows that efforts will not return manufacturing to past levels.

Book Synopsis

Manufacturing jobs, once the backbone of the modern US economy, have declined as a share of GDP over recent decades, darkening opportunities for middle-class advancement. Similar trends have impacted export superpowers like China, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. Driven by nostalgia for a bygone era, however, many countries have turned to reshoring and "industrial policies" to revive manufacturing employment. In this book, Robert Z. Lawrence argues that these efforts are unlikely to succeed. He demonstrates that deeply rooted forces common to all countries--technological change, shifting consumer spending patterns, and trade--account for lagging manufacturing employment and that these trends are unlikely to be reversed. The industrial sector's historic role as an engine of opportunity and inclusive growth is unsustainable. Government efforts to promote manufacturing to achieve goals such as industrial self-sufficiency, green transitions, and digital technologies, however well intentioned, may even make economic growth less inclusive. Instead, new policies are needed to help people, places, and countries cope with inevitable changes in the composition of employment.

Review Quotes

The most reliable and comprehensive book on a very important topic.--Jason Furman "Five Books"

Timely and bold.--Sungsoo An, CEO & CFO at S&G Consulting Firm

A Best Economics Book of 2024 - Financial Times

"Lawrence, one of the world's leading trade economists, demolishes the belief that subsidies or tariffs will restore an economy in which a huge number of unskilled workers, predominantly men, earn good wages from factory jobs."

--Martin Wolf "Financial Times"

Lawrence offers a masterful account of how specialization in manufacturing evolves as countries develop economically, and how technological change, globalization, and economic policy affect countries' industrial trajectories. His analysis is essential reading for all who are interested in the future of the manufacturing sector.--Gordon Hanson, The Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

About the Author

Robert Z. Lawrence, nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics since 2001, is the Albert L. Williams Professor of Trade and Investment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Global Fellow at the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth. He was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a member of his Council of Economic Advisers in 1999. He held the New Century Chair as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and founded and edited the Brookings Trade Forum. Lawrence has been a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at Brookings (1983-91) and a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Yale University.