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October 2006, Vol. 129, No. 10
Structural changes in Manhattan’s post-9/11 economy
Michael L. Dolfman, Solidelle F. Wasser, and Kevin Skelly
Business cycle ebbs and flows are common features of the U.S. economy. In Manhattan, where there is a concentration of finance, information, and professional services industries, the economic downturn of 2001 started earlier and lasted longer than it did in other parts of the country.1
The national economic downturn that hit Manhattan hard in early 2001 was exacerbated by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11. As this article will show, the economic decline, lasting from 2001 until 2004, was unique in its contribution to a fundamental shift in Manhattan’s economy.
In previous decades, job creation in Manhattan’s "global sector" was the economic engine driving the borough's entire economy. Today, as a result of the 2001 downturn, high wages generated by global-sector industries emerge as a new determinant of Manhattan's economy.
This excerpt is from an article published in the October 2006 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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Footnotes
1
Data from the Web site www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html
of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) indicate that the national
2001 recession started in March 2001 and ended in November 2001. In New York,
it started earlier—in January 2001—and lasted longer. (See Jason Bram,
"Identification of the Beginning of the Economic Downturn in New York
City," Current Issues (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, February
2003), pp. 2, 3.
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
9/11 and the New York City economy: A borough-by-borough analysis—Jun. 2004.
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