Power Shift: East and West

Abstract

Most countries including China are losing agricultural share in GDP, even as food production grows faster than population. The global manufacturing share has held steady over recent decades, but it has declined in Western countries and risen in Eastern countries. China is, of course, a large part of the story, but so too is Japan’s stagnation, Korea’s rise, and Europe’s drop in the ranks. The global pie has grown and so has the Eastern share, while the decline of Western manufacturing is greatly exaggerated.

Tradable services constitute the current revolution in the global industrial shift.