Following on yesterday’s posting, I would like to take up some of those intriguing questions posed by the Commerce Department’s Competitiveness study RFI (see earlier posting).

Let’s start with something I have written on before: manufacturing and services.

For topic #6: Manufacturing.  The RFI asks the following questions:

What is the role of advanced manufacturing in driving American economic growth and international competitiveness, and what are the key obstacles to success at advanced manufacturing? In which manufacturing industries will our nation have comparative advantages?

The short answer to the first question is simple: manufacturing will continue to play a major role in American economic prosperity.  It will be a different role.  As we pointed out a year ago in our Policy Brief–Intellectual Capital and Revitalizing Manufacturing, manufacturing is in the process of being transformed into a much more knowledge-intensive activity.  The process is analogous to the transformation of agriculture in the early 20th century.  Farming did not simply move to other nations with lower-cost producers using the traditional techniques. Agriculture was mechanized–or industrialized, if you prefer. That transformation led to efficiencies that revolutionized the production of commodities and contributed to … Read the rest