Are federal fiscal deficits accelerating deindustrialisation in the United States? For four decades, employment in U.S. manufacturing as a share of the labour force has fallen further and faster than in other industrial countries. In the mid-1960s, manufacturing output was 27 per cent of gross national product and manufacturing's share of employment was 24 percent. By 2003, these numbers had fallen to about 13.8 percent and 10.5 percent respectively. Employment in manufacturing remains weak, with an absolute decline of 18,000 jobs in September shown in the Labor Department's payroll survey.
At the same time, the orgy of tax-cutting, with big revenue losses, continues unabated. On October 6, House and Senate negotiators approved an expansive tax bill that showers businesses and farmers with about $145bn in rate cuts and new loopholes -- on top of what were already unprecedented fiscal deficits. These are principally financed by foreign central banks, which hold more than half the outstanding stock of US Treasury bonds. Moreover, meagre saving by American households is forcing US companies also to borrow heavily abroad.
The upshot is a current account deficit of more than $600 billion a year. America's cumulative net foreign indebtedness is about 30 percent of gross domestic product and rising fast. How will this affect manufacturing? The transfer of foreign savings to the US is embodied more in goods than in services. Outsourcing to India aside, most services are not so easily traded internationally. Thus when U.S. spending rises above output (income), the net absorption of foreign goods -- largely raw materials and manufactures -- increases. True, in this year and last the high price of oil has also boosted the current account deficit. However, since the early 1980s, the trade deficit in manufactures alone has been about as big as the current account deficit -- that is, as big as America's saving shortfall (for more detail, see http://siepr.stanford.edu).
If U.S. households' and companies' spending on manufactures is more or less independent of whether the goods are produced at home or abroad, domestic production shrinks by the amount of the trade deficit in manufactures. The consequent job loss depends on labor productivity in manufacturing, which rises strongly through time. If the trade deficit in manufactures is added back to domestic production to get "adjusted manufactured output", and labor productivity (output per person) in manufacturing stays constant, we get projected manufacturing employment. In 2003, actual manufacturing employment was just 10.5 percent of the US labor force, but it would have been 13.9 percent without a trade deficit in manufactures: the difference is 4.7m lost jobs.
In the 1980s, employment in manufacturing began to shrink substantially because of the then large current account deficit attributed to the then large fiscal deficit: Ronald Reagan's infamous twin deficits. With fiscal consolidation under Bill Clinton, the savings gap narrowed but was not closed because personal saving weakened. Now under George W. Bush, the fiscal deficit has exploded while private saving is still weak. The result is heavy borrowing from foreigners and all-time highs in the current account deficit. The main component remains the trade deficit in manufactures, intensifying the shrinkage in manufacturing jobs.
Is there cause for concern? Note that I do not suggest that the trend in overall employment has decreased, but only that its composition has tilted away from tradable goods -- largely manufactures. In the long run, growth in service employment will largely offset the decline in manufacturing. However, the rate of technical change in manufacturing is higher than in other sectors. It is hard to imagine the US sustaining its technological leadership with no manufacturing sector at all.
More uncomfortably, more Congressmen, pundits and voters feel justified in claiming that foreigners use unfair trade practices to steal U.S. jobs, particularly in manufacturing, and hence in urging protectionism. The irony is that, if imports were somehow greatly reduced, this would prevent the transfer of foreign saving to the United States and lead to a credit crunch, with a possibly even greater loss of US jobs.
The answer is not tariffs, exchange rate changes or subsidies to manufacturing that further increase the fiscal deficit. The proper way of reducing protectionist pressure and relieving anxiety about U.S. manufacturing is for the government to consolidate its finances and move deliberately towards running surpluses -- in short, to eliminate the U.S. economy's saving deficiency.
