Manufacturing on the Move

Cebula, Richard (1993): Manufacturing on the Move. Published in: Southern Economic Journal , Vol. 61, No. 2 (7 October 1994): pp. 540-542.

Abstract

This paper evaluates a study by Robert Crandall that empirically examines the shift in manufacturing employment and output from the so-called “Rust Belt” states – the states from Wisconsin to New York – to the South and West [the “Sun Belt”]. Crandall finds that differences in labor market conditions – in the degree of unionization and wage rates – provide the principal explanation of this growth of manufacturing employment and output in the West and South. He also provided evidence that the movement of manufacturing from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt is not likely to stop because the interstate differentials between the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt in terms of wages and the degree of unionization have not significantly narrowed.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: manufacturing firms; geographic mobility; wage rate disparities; unionization
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J31 - Wage Level and Structure ; Wage Differentials; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J5 - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining > J51 - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J5 - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining > J53 - Labor-Management Relations ; Industrial Jurisprudence

References

Robert W. Crandall, 1993, Manufacturing on the Move. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.