Abstract
The role of manufacturing in economic development was the subject of an online debate between Ha-Joon Chang and Jagdish Bhagwati hosted in 2011 by The Economist, with Chang arguing in favour of and Bhagwati against the motion that ‘an economy cannot succeed without a big manufacturing base’ (The Economist 2011). After two rounds of debate, readers were invited to side with either Chang’s or Bhagwati’s views. Two contrasting developments, The Economist argued, gave the debate special resonance. First was the post-2007 global crisis, during which some countries more dependent on financial services fared poorly — for example, the United Kingdom and the United States — while others more dependent on manufacturing did better — for example, Germany and China. Second, and of longer precedence, was the so-called ‘emergence’ of India, for which such advanced services as information technology (IT) and business processing outsourcing (BPO) played highly visible roles.