The Blinder Approach

OK, Alan Blinder, there’s something here I don’t understand. I get the point that things may get tough for a lot of American workers over the next 30 years. I get the point that this makes the case for providing better social insurance stronger than it used to be. I get the point that it makes the case for encouraging more research and development stronger than it used to be. I get the point that it makes the general case for facilitating more and better education and training stronger than it used to be. But here’s what I don’t get:

…we need to rethink our education system so that it turns out more people who are trained for the jobs that will remain in the United States. … many electronic service jobs will move offshore, whereas personal service jobs will not. Here are a few examples. Tax accounting is easily offshorable; onsite auditing is not. Computer programming is offshorable; computer repair is not. Architects could be endangered, but builders aren't. Were it not for stiff regulations, radiology would be offshorable; but pediatrics and geriatrics aren't. Lawyers who write contracts can do so at a distance and deliver them electronically; litigators who argue cases in court cannot.

So apparently we want to train people for onsite auditing, computer repair, building, pediatrics, geriatrics, litigation, and similar occupations. But why? Don’t we already have enough – or at least almost enough – auditors, computer repair people, builders, pediatricians, geriatricians, and litigators? Is there any reason to expect that offshoring will increase demand for those occupations? What model do you have in mind wherein foreign competition increases the demand for non-tradable services?

In my crass Mundell-Fleming conception, here’s what happens when offshoring occurs. Suppose a lot of people from India learn to do American tax accounting, computer programming, architecture, and so on, undercutting American service producers. A bunch of American accountants, programmers, architects, and such will lose their jobs. The Fed will notice the slack labor markets and cut interest rates. As a result, the dollar will depreciate, causing an increase in demand for some other American products. Which products, exactly, we don’t know, but they have to be products that are exportable – not auditing, computer repair, and building, and pediatrics. There will be excess demand for certain kinds of workers, but not, ultimately, for the categories of workers whose jobs can’t move offshore.

I grant you that we do not live in a small country with perfectly substitutable assets, so things won’t happen exactly the way I suggested. There will be a temporary demand for certain non-tradable services – specifically the ones that are interest-rate sensitive, like building. That, in fact, is already happening, or perhaps has just finished happening. But today I think one might be rather glad to have passed up the opportunity to train for a job in the construction industry. In the longer run, surely we cannot expect that foreigners will be willing to finance ever higher amounts of non-tradable services for Americans. Perhaps we can maintain a large trade deficit, but surely we can’t keep running ever larger trade deficits, to create ever greater demand for domestic non-tradable services.

So do we need to rethink our educational system? Perhaps, but as to how, exactly, I have no idea. I don’t understand why we would want to restructure it to turn out more people trained for non-tradable service jobs.