ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the composition of the manufacturing sector in more detail and considers some of the major determinants of change at the level of individual industries. The search for similarities in patterns of structural change has a comparatively short history dating back to the work of Fisher and Clark. Originally attention focused on sectoral interrelationships; economists observed the progressive movement of labour from agriculture to manufacturing and to services and explained these shifts in terms of the changing pattern of domestic demand. Economists have put forward several different explanations for structural change. An early version focused on long-term changes in demand and distinguished between light and heavy industries. A second, closely related, explanation of structural change stressed the differences between consumer non-durables, capital goods and industrial supplies or intermediates. The definition of consumer goods overlaps with that of light industry, while industrial intermediates and capital goods are mainly supplied by heavy industry.
