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The Manufacturing League

Six economies ranked by manufacturing share, then read across four measures of scale versus sophistication

Unit
Mixed (see columns)
Frequency
Annual
Coverage
Latest available, 2020–2025
Evidence Quality
Medium

Six economies, five metrics of scale versus sophistication — the country that makes the most does not earn the most per worker.

World Bank WDI · latest available year per country · NV.IND.MANF.ZS, TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS, GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS, SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD, NV.SRV.TOTL.ZS

Cell colour = rank within each column (darker = stronger); the printed number is the real value

Colour encodes each column's rank, not its magnitude, so a percentage column and a dollar column shade on the same 1–6 scale. The printed value in each cell is the real WDI figure; units differ by column. The shade skips its mid-tones to keep every printed value legible, so the step from pale to dark cells is not a break in the ranks.

01

Question

The manufacturing race is usually told as one number — who makes the most. Read across scale and sophistication at once: does the country that makes the most also innovate, automate and earn the most per worker?

02

Evidence

Rows are sorted by manufacturing share; each cell's colour is its rank within that column (darker = stronger) and the printed number is the real WDI value. Because units differ across columns — shares of GDP, an export ratio, dollars per worker — colour compares ranks, not magnitudes.

03

Observation

Read by row and by column; the diagonal and the outliers carry the meaning.

Read the table left-to-right as scale → sophistication: manufacturing and high-tech exports on the left are about how much and what is shipped; R&D, output per worker and services on the right are about how advanced and how productive.

04

Assessment

  • Scale and sophistication come apart. China makes the most (about 25% of GDP, 2025) and ships the largest high-tech export share (about 26%, 2024), yet ranks only fourth of six on both R&D intensity (about 2.6% of GDP) and output per worker (about $46k) — it leads on volume, not on value per head.
  • The US sits last in manufacturing share (about 10.5% of GDP, 2021) but first on all three sophistication columns — R&D (about 3.45% of GDP), output per worker (about $154k) and services (about 76% of GDP): a post-industrial profile, not a weak one.
  • India is the widest internal split: third on high-tech export share (about 19%) yet last of the six on both R&D intensity (about 0.65%) and output per worker (about $24k, roughly a sixth of the US level).
05

Advantage