IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aah/aarhec/2014-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rethinking Deindustrialization

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew B. Bernard

    (Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, CEPR & NBER)

  • Valerie Smeets

    (Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University, Denmark)

  • Frederic Warzynski

    (Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University, Denmark)

Abstract

This paper examines the decline in manufacturing in Denmark from 1994 to 2007. As in almost every other high-income country, manufacturing employment and the number of manufacturing firms in Denmark have been shrinking as a share of the total and in absolute levels. Most of the decline of manufacturing is due to firm exit and reduced employment at surviving manufacturers. However, a portion of the recorded decline is due to firms switching industries, from manufacturing to service sectors. We focus on this last group of firms, asking what they looked like before switched and how they fared after the switch. Overall this is a group of small high productivity firms that grow more rapidly after they switch. By 2007, employment at these former manufacturers equals 10 percent of manufacturing employment, reducing the apparent decline in manufacturing employment by about one half.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew B. Bernard & Valerie Smeets & Frederic Warzynski, 2014. "Rethinking Deindustrialization," Economics Working Papers 2014-14, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    • Handle: RePEc:aah:aarhec:2014-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.econ.au.dk/repec/afn/wp/14/wp14_14.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson & Jae Song, 2014. "Trade Adjustment: Worker-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1799-1860.
    2. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2009. "The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number laze08-1.
    3. Lazear, Edward P. & Shaw, Kathryn L. (ed.), 2009. "The Structure of Wages," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226470504, September.
    4. Frederiksen, Anders & Westergaard-Nielsen, Niels, 2007. "Where did they go? Modelling transitions out of jobs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 811-828, October.
    5. Tor Eriksson, 2012. "Flexicurity and the Economic Crisis 2008-2009: Evidence from Denmark," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 139, OECD Publishing.
    6. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2013. "The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2121-2168, October.
    7. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2014. "Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2509-2526, August.
    8. Falvey, Rod & Greenaway, David & Silva, Joana, 2010. "Trade liberalisation and human capital adjustment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 230-239, July.
    9. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    10. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning, 2007. "Lousy and Lovely Jobs: The Rising Polarization of Work in Britain," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 118-133, February.
    11. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2009. "Structural Change in an Interdependent World: A Global View of Manufacturing Decline," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 478-486, 04-05.
    12. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning, 2007. "Lousy and Lovely Jobs: The Rising Polarization of Work in Britain," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 118-133, February.
    13. Francisco J. Buera & Joseph P. Kaboski, 2009. "Can Traditional Theories of Structural Change Fit The Data?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 469-477, 04-05.
    14. Frederiksen, Anders & Ibsen, Rikke & Rosholm, Michael & Westergaard-Nielsen, Niels, 2013. "Labour market signalling and unemployment duration: An empirical analysis using employer–employee data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 84-86.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Keller, Wolfgang & Utar, Hale, 2023. "International trade and job polarization: Evidence at the worker level," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Blanchard, Emily & Willmann, Gerald, 2016. "Trade, education, and the shrinking middle class," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 263-278.
    3. Antonis Adam & Antonios Garas & Marina-Selini Katsaiti & Athanasios Lapatinas, 2023. "Economic complexity and jobs: an empirical analysis," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 25-52, January.
    4. Muendler, Marc-Andreas, 2017. "Trade, technology, and prosperity: An account of evidence from a labor-market perspective," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2017-15, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    5. Heyman, Fredrik & Olsson, Martin, 2022. "Long-Run Effects of Technological Change: The Impact of Automation and Robots on Intergenerational Mobility," Working Paper Series 1451, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 29 Jun 2023.
    6. David Autor & Caroline Chin & Anna Salomons & Bryan Seegmiller, 2024. "New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940–2018," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(3), pages 1399-1465.
    7. Nikolaos Terzidis & Raquel Ortega‐Argilés, 2021. "Employment polarization in regional labor markets: Evidence from the Netherlands," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(5), pages 971-1001, November.
    8. Merja Kauhanen & Terhi Maczulskij, 2017. "Where do workers from declining routine jobs go and does migration matter?," Working Papers 314, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    9. Harrigan, James & Reshef, Ariell & Toubal, Farid, 2021. "The March of the Techies: Job Polarization Within and Between Firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).
    10. Terhi Maczulskij, 2024. "Occupational Mobility of Routine Workers," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(5), pages 1198-1229, October.
    11. Patrick Bennett & Aline Bütikofer & Kjell G. Salvanes & Darina Steskal, 2022. "Changes in Urban Wages, Jobs, and Workers from 1958-2017," CESifo Working Paper Series 9766, CESifo.
    12. Brand, Claus & Obstbaum, Meri & Coenen, Günter & Sondermann, David & Lydon, Reamonn & Ajevskis, Viktors & Hammermann, Felix & Angino, Siria & Hernborg, Nils & Basso, Henrique & Hertweck, Matthias & Bi, 2021. "Employment and the conduct of monetary policy in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 275, European Central Bank.
    13. Guido Matias Cortes1 & Diego M. Morris, 2020. "Are routine jobs moving south? Evidence from changes in the occupational structure of employment in the USA and Mexico," WIDER Working Paper Series wp2020-11, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Guido Matias Cortes & Diego M. Morris, 2019. "Are Routine Jobs Moving South? Evidence from Changes in the Occupational Structure of Employment in the U.S. and Mexico," Working Paper series 19-15, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    15. Antonios Garas & Sophie Guthmuller & Athanasios Lapatinas, 2021. "The development of nations conditions the disease space," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-35, January.
    16. Nils Braakmann, 2018. "Company Closures and the Erosion of the Political Centre: Evidence from Germany," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(4), pages 835-858, December.
    17. Einiö, Elias, 2015. "The Loss of Production Work: Identification of Demand Shifts Based on Local Soviet Trade Shocks," Working Papers 61, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Michael J. Böhm & Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Felix Schran, 2024. "Occupation Growth, Skill Prices, and Wage Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 201-243.
    19. Silvia Vannutelli & Sergio Scicchitano & Marco Biagetti, 2022. "Routine-biased technological change and wage inequality: do workers’ perceptions matter?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 12(3), pages 409-450, September.
    20. Dirk Antonczyk & Thomas DeLeire & Bernd Fitzenberger, 2018. "Polarization and Rising Wage Inequality: Comparing the U.S. and Germany," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-33, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    deindustrialization; manufacturing firms; industry switching; employment; skill composition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • F61 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Microeconomic Impacts
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aah:aarhec:2014-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.au.dk/afn/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.