Typesetting and the Problems of Economic Development
Typesetting has been moving to the developing world in the past ten years. That seems natural: it requires a lot of moderately skilled labor and little capital or propinquity, since files can be sent over the Internet. But maybe the trend will reverse. I’m seeing from personal experience that the Third World lacks one crucial input: dependability.
It’s important in typesetting to be accurate and on time, and to coordinate one’s activities with other people (author and publisher) honestly and clearly. The page proofs of the third edition of my book, typeset in India, had a huge number of errors compared to the first and second, typeset in England. The fourth edition was a highly frustrating experience, with the Indian typesetter, Newgen, not only making errors but failing to correct them, being slow, and missing deadlines. Now Vtex, in Lithuania, has been typesetting a book chapter I wrote, and they have missed their deadlines and thought they emailed the page proofs to me and my co-author 2 weeks ago though neither of us received them.
Dependability does require some management skill, and it does require experience (knowing to ask for confirmations when you send important emails, for example), but it seems so much easier to be dependable than to acquire technical skills. Apparently not.
Thus, the dependability of business in the United States will remain a big source of comparative advantage.