services – IMF Blog

Chart of the WeekWhen it Comes to Services vs. Manufacturing, Words Matter

IMFBlog2021-02-16T10:00:21-05:00February 16, 2021|

Efforts to revive national manufacturing sectors get a lot of airtime. After all, the sector propelled many East and South East Asian economies—the so-called “East Asia Miracle”—and was a gateway to the middle class for millions of workers. However, for all the obsession with manufacturing, economists for their part seem to be more preoccupied with services.

To confirm this, we combed through thousands of IMF reports on countries’ economies from 1978 to 2019. Using 113 distinct terms related to growth theory and policy—ranging from “infrastructure” to “liberalization”—we computed the relative weights of each term across countries and years. As shown in our chart of the week, “services” is used more than any other term.

In fact, across all countries and years, “services” comprises about 20 percent of the occurrences of all terms, with tourism in particular getting more attention. “Agriculture” and “agricultural” are the second most frequently used terms, followed by “industry” and “industrial.” By contrast, “manufacturing” comes up only 2 to 5 percent of the time, depending on the income group (5 percent for advanced economies). “Manufacturing” appears even less often than terms such as “institutions,” “privatization,” and […]

Limiting the Economic Fallout of the Coronavirus with Large Targeted Policies

IMFBlog2020-03-18T14:41:03-04:00March 9, 2020|

This blog is part of a special series on the response to the coronavirus.

By Gita Gopinath

عربي, 中文, Español, Français, 日本語, Português, Русский

This health crisis will have a significant economic fallout, reflecting shocks to supply and demand different from past crises. Substantial targeted policies are needed to support the economy through the epidemic, keeping intact the web of economic and financial relationships between workers and businesses, lenders and borrowers, and suppliers and end-users for activity to recover once the outbreak fades. The goal is to prevent a temporary crisis from permanently harming people and firms through job losses and bankruptcies. […]