The idea that manufacturing is superior to services for powering a country’s economy has long been taken as a given.

That’s why some economists have issued warnings about developing countries experiencing what they call premature deindustrialization. In those countries, they see service activity overtaking manufacturing before a proper manufacturing economy has taken hold.

But what if the way services are measured no longer reflects modern production? And what if services don’t deserve to be relegated to a lesser form of production anyway?

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About the authors

Valerie Mercer-Blackman is a senior economist at the Asian Development Bank.

Christine Ablaza is a doctoral student at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

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