Michael Spence Quotes

History is full of examples of poorer nations that become wealthy by exploiting their comparative advantage in cheap labor to become globally competitive in a range of manufacturing industries.... If robots are expected to take over many of the menial jobs currently performed by people, the concern should not be for the working class in wealthy countries but for the billions living in the developing world who will now have lost the only established ladder out of poverty.

I've gone to China, bought a manufacturing company and moved it to America. Now China wants to buy back some of that new technology from me. That's a great story for America.

Outsourcing and globalization of manufacturing allows companies to reduce costs, benefits consumers with lower cost goods and services, causes economic expansion that reduces unemployment, and increases productivity and job creation.

As an economic historian, I appreciate what manufacturing has contributed to the United States. It was the engine of growth that allowed us to win two world wars and provided millions of families with a ticket to the middle class. But public policy needs to go beyond sentiment and history.

If you ask an economist what's driven economic growth, it's been major advances in things that mattered - the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.

Globalization has very materially improved the standard of living in the Unitied States... as it has for those countries that have chosen to operate with free trade…. Although none of us likes our competitors, competition has greatly improved our standard of living.

China's continued growth and rising household income are creating opportunities for lower-income economies in low-cost manufacturing.

Engineers in the developed world should be arguing not for protectionism but for trade agreements that seek to establish rules that result in a real rise in living standards. This will ensure that outsourcing is a positive force in the developing nation's economy and not an exploitative one.

Manufacturing and other unskilled professions that were union jobs, that allowed people to live a middle-class life, are disappearing both because unions are disappearing and because of the global nature of the economy.

Yet in this global economy, no jobs are safe. High-speed Internet connections and low-cost, skilled labor overseas are an explosive combination.

Chinese productivity is the highest in the world but the way they do it is by borrowing the technology from abroad, either by joint ventures or other means.

The bottom line is there are lots of problems that were not created by government. The biggest one is loss of middle class incomes, loss of good-paying jobs which was created by technology and globalization. Above all, when you can move a job to China or India, it reduces wages.

Booming cities, and the provinces and states in which they are located, are driving forces in economic growth today. Consequently, they constitute the new frontier in America's international economic policy.

There is no better form of trade a developing nation can engage in than to sell services provided by an educated population.

In the four decades after World War II, manufacturing jobs paid more than other jobs for given skills. But that is much less true today. Increased international competition has forced American manufacturers to reduce costs. As a result, the pay premium for low-skilled workers in manufacturing is smaller than it once was.

Technological innovation is indeed important to economic growth and the enhancement of human possibilities.

Low-wage jobs have gone offshore. We need to innovate to stay competitive.

You know, in China, they say, come on over, we'll build the plant for you. Of course, then they steal your patents, but the reality is that they are aggressively trying to take our jobs. Every other country is. They know that to have a middle class, you have to make things.

The challenge to our national economies and the collective economy of Europe will become - with the growth of China and the continuing productivity growth of the US - even more intense in the decades to come.

The dynamic drives of modern economic growth, in the countries that entered the process ahead of others, meant a reaching out geographically; and the sequential spread of the process, facilitated by major changes in transport and communication, meant a continuous expansion to the less developed areas.

Trade helps bring us products cheaply, but there is no guarantee whatsoever to assume that it will allow us to replace the jobs that have been lost, and there is no mechanism under productivity that says that, either.

Developing new products is labour- intensive. So is producing the capital goods needed to make them. These jobs disappear when innovation stalls.

At a time when we are losing manufacturing jobs in this country, we should be doing everything we can to help our manufacturers stay competitive. They are the backbone of our economy.

For me, the real thing is make, serve and list in India. Which means we need manufacturing, we need services, and we need financial markets.

The demographic weight of countries such as China and India exercise a massive pressure on our wages and salaries. They have accomplished massive technological advances and the revolution in information technology has reduced the costs of transport.