Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing

摘要

By many measures, manufacturing in the United States has been regressing. Certainly along most any relative metric-share of domestic output and employment, share of world manufacturing, trade balances relative to the other large manufacturing countries-the sector has been shrinking for decades. Whether these changes reflect the natural evolution of an economy, akin to the way most economists view developed economies' past shifts away from agriculture, or instead portend large economic and societal problems, has been the content of considerable debate. The prolific Vaclav Smil's recent effort, Made in the USA, enters into this conversation.