Premature Deindustrialisation and Income Inequality Dynamics: Evidence from Middle-Income Economies

The structural transformation path in most developing economies follows an employment shift towards service activities, skipping an industrialisation phase. In this paper, we explore how this premature deindustrialisation trend affects the inclusive growth trajectory of middle-income economies. Considering the trends in manufacturing employment and value-added share, we identify premature deindustrialisation phases in economies. We apply panel fixed-effects and bootstrap-corrected dynamic fixed-effects models to empirically examine the relationship between premature deindustrialisation and income inequality. Our findings suggest that income inequality rises with premature deindustrialisation if the displaced workers are absorbed into market services (especially with employment movement towards non-business market services such as trade, transport, hotels, and accommodation). In contrast, if non-market services (such as education and health) or business services (such as banking and financial services) are the dominant employment provider, it helps to reduce income inequality even in the presence of premature deindustrialisation.