Reporters' Notebook; Behind the scenes with Crain's writers.(The Insider)(Eric Fisher)(Air Enterprises Inc.)

Crain's Cleveland Business, August, 2004

Report blames innovation, not outsourcing, for job losses Politicians routinely promise to "save'' U.S. manufacturing jobs. But a new economic commentary from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland indicates our elected leaders are full of hot air - at least on this subject. The report by Eric Fisher, an associate professor at Ohio State University and a research associate at the Cleveland Fed, argues that factors such as state tax policies and the outsourcing of jobs overseas play only a small role in the withering of the manufacturing job base.

According to Mr. Fisher, the biggest reason for manufacturing job decline is labor-saving technological progress, which is out of politicians' ability to control. As such (here's the controversial part), Mr....

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.