DEINDUSTRIALIZATION. FIFTY YEARS OF CONTROVERSIES ABOUT ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

This article examines the debate on the phenomenon of deindustrialization in the last 50 years. It reviews a relevant set of works referring to the deindustrialization process of the United States and the United Kingdom -the two economies on which the bulk of the academic discussion on the subject was concentrated between the 1960s and 1990s- and discusses its theoretical disagreement about the causes and possible consequences of the manufacturing decline. Likewise, the article analyzes the emergence of premature deindustrialization as a novel analytical category that amplifies deindustrialization debate to a series of backward economies that saw an early decline in their industrial development.