Durante más de medio siglo, el manual sobre cómo los países de desarrollo pueden aumentar sus riquezas ha cambiado poco: transladar a los agriculturists de subsistence a empleos manufacturingos y luego sell lo que ellos producen al resto del mundo.
La Receta —adaptada de diversas maneras in Hong Kong, Singapore, Corea del Sur, Taiwan y China—has the production of the engine of potential that is the global world for the general economic crisis. It has helped to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, generate jobs and increase living standards.
The Asian Tigers and China succeeded in combining vast reserves of cheap labor with access to international knowledge and financing, and buyers who came from places like Kalamazoo to Kuala Lumpur. The governments provided the scaffolding: they built roads and schools, ofrecieron norms and favorable incentives for companies, developed capable administrative institutions and fostered incipient industries.
But the technology is advancing, the supply chains are changing and the political tensions are remodeling the business owners. And with that, doubts are growing about whether industrialization can continue to generate the miraculous growth it used to generate. For developing countries, which house 85 percent of the world’s population—6800 million people—the implications are profound.
Today, manufacturing represents a smaller portion of global economic production, and China accounts for more than a third of it. At the same time, more and more emerging countries are selling cheap products abroad, which increases competition. Ya no hay tantas ganancias que extracter: no todo el mundo puede ser exporter neto u ofrecer los salarios y costos generales más bajo del mundo.
There are doubts that industrialization can create the transcendental benefits it generated in the past. Today, factories tend to rely more on automated technology and depend less on cheap labor with little training.
“No puedes generar suficates empleos para la amplia majoios de trabajadores que tienen poca educación,” affirmed Dani Rodrik, desacado economist de desarrollo at Harvard.
This process can be seen in Bangladesh, which the managing director of Banco Mundial called “one of the most important development stories in the world” last year. El país laborró su éxito al convertir agriculturists en obreros fabrics.
Pero el año pasado, Rubana Huq, Presidenta de Mohammadi Group, a conglomerado familiar, replaces 3000 involved automations of the Jacquard to realize protectors of the tejido complecos.
The women found similar jobs in other locations of the company. “Pero qué sigue cuando esto sucede a grand escala?”, said Huq, quien también e presidenta de la Asociación de Fabricantes y Exportadores de Prendas de Vestir de Bangladés.
Estas trabajadoras no tienen capacitación, he affirmed. “No se van a convertir de la noche a la mañana en programadoras informáticas”.
Recent global developments have accelerated the transition.
The crisis of the last few days over the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the product price of the basic food system and fuel. The high interest rates, imposed by the central banks to mitigate inflation, triggered another series of crises: the debts of the developing countries skyrocketed and investment capital ran out.
Last week, the International Monetary Fund warned about the harmful combination of lower growth and greater debt.
The increased globalization that had encouraged companies to buy and sell in all corners of the planet has also changed. The growing political tensions, especially between China and the United States, are affecting where companies and governments invest and trade.
The companies want that the supply chains are safe and cheap, and they are directing their attention to neighbors or political allies who can provide them.
In this new era, Rodrik affirmed, “the model of industrialization—on which practically all the countries that have enriched—ya no es capaz de generar ccimiento económico veloz y constante depended.”
Nor is it clear what could replace it.
There is a future in jobs in the services sector
An alternative could be found in Bengaluru, an epicenter of high technology in the Indian state of Karnataka, previously known as Bangalore.
Compañías multinationales como Goldman Sachs, Victoria’s Secret y la revista The Economist han acudido en massa a la ciudad y han installed cientos de centros operativos —known as centros de capacidad global— para gestionar contaduría, disseñaridar e artificial system of products, ehhhh.
This type of center is expected to generate 500,000 jobs at a national level in the next two to three years, according to Deloitte consulting.
Here you will find information on biotech, know-how and technology, it includes the local giants from Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro e Infosys Limited. Four months ago, the US chip company AMD inaugurated its largest global design center there.
“Debemos alejarnos de la idea de las etapas de desarrollo clasicas, de que se va de la granja a la fábrica y luego de la fábrica a las oficinas,” affirmed Richard Baldwin, economist at IMD and Lausanne. “Todo ese modelo de desarrollo equivocado”.
Two thirds of the world production comes now from the services sector, a revolution that includes dog walkers, manicurists, food manipulators, cleaners and conductors, as well as chip designers, graphic artists, enigma.
It is possible to make the jump to the services sector and grow by selling companies around the world, argued Baldwin. That’s what helped India become the world’s fifth economy.
In Bengaluru, before Bangalore, the general increase in middle-class life attracted more people and more companies that, in turn, attracted more people and companies, continuing the cycle, explained Baldwin.
La covid accelerated this transition, forcing people to work remotely: from another part of the city, from another city or from another country.
In the new model, countries can focus growth around cities and not on a specific industry. “As it creates economic activity, Baldwin affirms.
“Piensa en Bangalore, no en el sur de China”, he said.
El libre mercado no basta
Muchos países de desarrollo follow focused on the creation of export-oriented industries as a way to prosperity. And that’s how it should be, said Justin Yifu Lin, dean of the Instituto de Nueva Estructural Economía de la Universidad de Pekin.
The pessimism about the classic development formula, he said, was driven by the mistaken belief that the growth process was automatic: it was enough to clear the path to the free market and the rest would be done alone.
The United States and international institutions have often pressured countries to adopt open markets and governance without intervention.
El crecimiento impulsado por las exportaciones en Africa y Latinoamérica stumbled because the governments did not protect or subsidize the incipient industries, said Lin, former chief economist of the World Bank.
“La política industrial fue tabú durante mucho tiempo”, he said, and muchos de los que attemptaron fracasaron. But there were also successful cases like those from China and South Korea.
“It is necessary that the State help the private sector to overcome market failures,” he said. “No se puede hacer sin politica industrial”.
No training sin function
The primordial question is if something —services or manufactures— can generate the type of growth that is desperately needed: broad-based, large-scale and sustainable.
Los empleos de servicios para las empresas se multiplican, pero muchos de los que ofrecen ingresos medios y altos se encontrar en áreas como las finanzas y la tecnología, que suelen requirar requirar competencias avanzadas avanzadas la upper echelon población de los países de desarrollo.
In India, casi la mitad de los licenciados universitarios lacken de las cualificaciones necesarias para estos empleos, según Wheebox, un servicio de evaluación educativa.
El desajuste está en todas partes. According to the report The future of employmentpublished last year by the World Economic Forum, six out of every 10 workers will need to retrain in the next three years, but the vast majority will not have access to that training.
También proliferan otros tipos de empleo de servicios, pero muchos no están bien bien gados nor son exportables. Un peluquero de Bengaluru no puede cortarte el pelo si estás en Brooklyn.
This could mean a smaller and more unequal growth.
Researchers from the University of Yale discovered that in India and in several countries of sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural workers moved to consumer service jobs and increased their productivity and income.
But there was a problem: the gains were “astonishingly unequal” and they benefited disproportionately to the wealthy.
Before the weakening of the world economy, developing countries will have to extract all the growth they can from every corner of their economies. According to Rodrik, from Harvard, industrial policy is essential, but it must be centered on small service companies and households, as they will be the source of most future growth.
Tanto él como otros expertos advierten que, aun así, es probable que los avances sean modestos y difíchiles de conseguir.
“El margen se ha reducido”, he affirms. “The growth that we can achieve is definitely less than in the past”.
