What happens in countries that cannot specialise in industry?
Some countries (for example France, Spain, Italy, India, Turkey and Brazil) do not have any positive comparative advantages for having a large-scale industry: they are suffering from either a low skill level or weak capital modernisation or a low level of savings. So what happens in countries where the size of industry is too small? In the short term, these countries have a significant external deficit; But in the long term, they have to eliminate their external deficit, leading to: Either a depreciation of their exchange rates (India, Turkey); Or a reduction in wages (to reduce domestic demand and also to improve cost competitiveness, as in Spain); Or a rise in interest rates (to reduce domestic demand, as in Italy). A macroeconomic adjustment is therefore inevitable in countries where manufacturing industry is too small because of productive specialisation.