Talk:Secondary sector of the economy

Construction industry

The definition of 'secondary industry' as well as your enumeration of covered industries omits the 'Construction indusry" which is I believe logically part of secondary industry, which is lumped under the definition of secondary industries in many, if not most, countries and which, in the United States, is included along with manufacturing in the 'goods producing sector'. Given the importance of the industry, I believe a clarification regarding its status is in order. Sincerely, Dr. Dean A. Peterson,DBA, Director, Nashville Export Assistance Center. USDOC — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.23.244.138 (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Manufacturing

Why has the service sector been included in a page on the secondary sector? This clearly belongs in the Tertiary sector page - or at least it always has as far as I'm concerned — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gec118 (talk • contribs) 14:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wealth-producing versus wealth-consuming

"Some economists contrast wealth-producing sectors in an economy such as manufacturing with the service sector which tends to be wealth-consuming." This seems to be a splinter view not worth mentionning in an article of this scope. Also the source cited is not academic. It is unclear in which way any sector of the economy should be more wealth-consuming or creating than any other. It depends on how one defines wealth, creation and consumption. While these are clearly thorny issues, the view that services are wealth consuming clearly is not a view held by many economists or any of rename, so "some economists" should be specified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inkathi (talk • contribs) 22:57, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Creative/telecommunications industries

Come on, they're hardly Secondary Sector, are they. Ill leave it for a week or so in case anyone here says different before deleting. Midlandstoday (talk) 21:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd really like to hear some persons with more economic background weigh in on this. To some extend the realm of information technologies (Computer science, telecom, etc.) belong in the secondary sector. Just because the medium at hand is intangible does not default the service as a member of the service sector. I propose that if a block of wood turned into a chair belongs here, than a block of silicon turned into a disk belongs here. While this is more the realm of computer manufacturing, which i doubt there is much argument that against its place here, computer science is an extention of the process. Whereas a block of wood is useless for sitting untill its final manifestation, a block of silicon is usless as a chip until it has been loaded with the appropriate logic to operate.

As such, i would like to reinclude some IT related services in the list of examplesTylerSontag (talk) 16:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

POV paragraph removed - wealth creating vs. consuming

Since I'm not the first person to have a problem with the neutrality of the below paragraph, I moved it here. This sounds like a conservative critique of the decline of manufacturing and rise in government funding of certain services in the U.S. and UK, without much context or balance. The references don't establish that the service sector in general is wealth-consuming, a claim which doesn't make much sense given how profitable some service businesses can be. -- Beland (talk) 10:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some economists contrast wealth-producing sectors in an economy such as manufacturing with the service sector which tends to be wealth-consuming.^[1] Examples of service may include retail, insurance, and government. These economists contend that an economy begins to decline as its wealth-producing sector shrinks.^[2] Manufacturing is an important activity to promote economic growth and development. Nations that export manufactured products tend to generate higher marginal GDP growth, which supports higher incomes and marginal tax revenue needed to fund the quality-of-life initiatives such as health care and infrastructure in the economy.^{[citation needed]} The field is an important source for engineering job opportunities. Among developed countries, it is an important source of well-paying jobs for the middle class to facilitate greater social mobility for successive generations of the economy.

References

^ David Friedman, New America Foundation (2002-06-16).No Light at the End of the Tunnel Los Angeles Times.
^ Sir Keith Joseph, Center for Policy Studies (1976-04-05).Stockton Lecture, Monetarism Is Not Enough, with forward by Margaret Thatcher. (Barry Rose Pub.) Margaret Thatcher Foundation (2006).

Japan

This is clearly not credible. Where is Japan? 82.110.109.211 (talk) 12:27, 30 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Countries by industrial output in 2015

The data for Germany is wrong (hasn't been cleaned up after vandalism, compare with May 2015 page), and the whole data set is not sourced. 78.52.156.151 (talk) 19:35, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Non-neutrality

"Manufacturing is an important activity in promoting economic growth and development. Nations that export manufactured products tend to generate higher marginal GDP growth, which supports higher incomes and therefore marginal tax revenue needed to fund such government expenditures as health care and infrastructure. Among developed countries, it is an important source of well-paying jobs for the middle class (e.g., engineering) to facilitate greater social mobility for successive generations on the economy."

For real? This completely flies in the face of what the majority of economists think about manufacturing and exporting.

Consider this survey which asked economists to agree or disagree with the proposition that "a typical country can increase its citizens' welfare by enacting policies that would increase its trade surplus"[1]. Only 5% of economists agreed with this statement (and please read the caveats below).

And since this rather short article is a thinly veiled attack on free trade, it's worth mentioning that 0% of economists disagreed with the proposition that freer trade is better[2].

Now consider the proposition that "the federal government would make the average U.S. citizen better off by using policies that directly focus more on increasing manufacturing employment than employment in other sectors"[3]. Only 5% of economists agreed with this statement. Just over 50% disagreed, and 15% strongly disagreed. Chicago economist Anil Kashyap wrote: "Memo to Romney and Obama: there is nothing per se special about manufacturing (except maybe nostalgia)."

Economist Adam Posen recently wrote about "The Price of Nostalgia" in Foreign Affairs, essentially making the case that the obsession with manufacturing jobs is seriously misguided and that protectionism is snake oil for inequality[4].

Here's Princeton economist Alan S. Blinder explaining why it's a fallacy to believe that you can export your way to prosperity[5]. This is mercantilist logic.

Whoever wrote this article is very obviously not an economist or someone who understands basic macroeconomic principles. Even the notion that "exported manufactured products support higher incomes" is deeply flawed: while this is true for lower and middle income economies, income growth in more advanced economies leads to a decline in demand for manufactured goods and an increase in demand for services. So an increase in the national income would lead to a natural decline in manufacturing, which has happened in literally every advanced economy. Secondly, the trade deficit (ie, goods and services traded) is just one facet of an accounting assessment known as the current accounts balance, which also tracks the flow of capital. A surplus in goods and services traded does not mean the exporting nation has "more money to spend on welfare and infrastructure", for the simple fact that the money exchanged for an export surplus doesn't stay in the exporter's national economy in the first place; it ends up in the importing nation's economy in the form of capital investment. This entire dynamic is explained by the National Savings and Investment Identity (see here [6]).

It is foreign direct investment that builds up advanced economies, not manufacturing exports. Both the World Bank and UN classify manufacturing economies as "developing nations", as low and middle income countries tend to be most efficient at manufacturing basic goods. Advanced economies are service oriented (note that by 'service oriented' I don't mean developed countries don't manufacture and export, but rather that services play a disproportionately large role even in the manufacturing process, which is more sophisticated).

This is a serious breach of neutrality guidelines. This entire article should be rewritten more clearly to reflect mainstream economic views and reliably sourced.Jonathan f1 (talk) 08:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[1] David Friedman, New America Foundation (2002-06-16).No Light at the End of the Tunnel Los Angeles Times.

[2] Sir Keith Joseph, Center for Policy Studies (1976-04-05).Stockton Lecture, Monetarism Is Not Enough, with forward by Margaret Thatcher. (Barry Rose Pub.) Margaret Thatcher Foundation (2006).

[1]

[2]