Despite reservations about the groundbreaking strides made with 3D printing, particularly as society struggles to keep pace with additive manufacturing milestones, the technology has had positive effects on global trade.
Research by the School of Global Policy and Strategy University of California San Diego (UCSD) has found that 3D printing is a boon to trade, allowing participating countries to provide higher income and more opportunities for their people.
Because 3D printing technology enables economies to produce goods locally, conventional wisdom has been that it would dramatically reduce international trade, UCSD says in a statement on the matter.
However, new research by the university and World Bank presents robust evidence that 3D printing has expanded trade, the statement claims.
A paper co-authored by Caroline Freund, economist and dean of the School of Global Policy and Strategy, finds that 3D printing has changed production processes, but supply chains have remained intact.
Along with the cutting-edge character of the topic at hand, the paper is the first to examine the impact of 3D printing on trade and, as such, is widely regarded as groundbreaking in what it has found.
Published in the Journal of International Economics, it looks at the production of hearing aids, especially with regard to production through additive manufacturing.
The results reveal that the shift to 3D printing led to a doubling or near doubling of producers' exports after five years.
Moreover, technology was the main cause of the rise in exports.
Freund and her co-authors also examined 35 other products, such as running shoes, aircraft parts and prosthetic limbs which are increasingly being 3D printed – and they found similar patterns.
“The technology is a boon, not a curse to trade,” Freund said.
“A country’s exports of hearing aids increased more than trade in other similar goods following the adoption of 3D printing by manufacturers there. The new production technology in combination with trade means that consumers around the world suffering hearing loss are benefiting from better and often cheaper hearing aids.”
One reason behind the expansion is that printing hearing aids in high volumes requires a large investment in technology and machinery. The countries that were early innovators - Denmark, Switzerland and Singapore - dominate exports, while middle-income economies such as China, Mexico and Vietnam have also been able to increase their market shares substantially.
In addition, hearing aids are lightweight products, which makes them fairly cheap to ship internationally. The same is true of the other products the authors examined - lighter products are associated with more trade growth.
These results are based on comparisons of the growth of the 3D printed products to other similar goods. The authors also accounted for trends and other factors that could skew the data.
“Policymakers often view 3D printing as a means to shorten supply chains when in fact it is more likely to enhance trade and reshape supply chains,” said Freund, former global director of trade, investment and competitiveness at the World Bank.
While the analysis of 3D printing’s impact on trade is positive, it has the possibility of being short-lived. If 3D printers become more accessible to local producers or even consumers in some sectors, production could be more localised, hindering development opportunities through trade.
The study, “Is 3D printing a threat to global trade? The trade effects you didn't hear about”, is co-authored by Alan Mulabdic, economist for the Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions’ Chief Economist’s Office at the World Bank, and Michele Ruta, lead economist at the World Bank.
