Trends in International Trade in Manufactured Goods and Structural Change in the Industrial Countries

This paper will examine recent trends in manufactured goods between the industrial and the developing countries and will indicate the implications of these trends for structural change in the industrial countries. It will update and extend earlier papers by the author, which dealt with the experience of the years 1973–8 (Balassa, 1979a, 1980a and 1981b). The present paper will cover the period 1973–81, with consideration given to changes during the sub-periods 1973–8 and 1978–81, each of which began with an oil shock, followed by a world recession.