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Alaina Lake
Professor Wilson
ECON 2010
7 August 2014
How will 3D Printing Effect the Economy?
It was only a decade or so ago when I would see a magical duplicating
machine in a movie and think that it was impossible for such a thing to ever
exist. Little did I know that such inventions were already being developed.
Imagine placing a product into a machine and having an exact copy of the
product in a matter of minutes. Now imagine being able to copy the object
without having the original in the first place. Technology has advanced
enough to make these things possible. It is most commonly called 3D
printing.
3D printers are being implemented more and more in the daily lives of
people everywhere. As time passes, these printers are becoming more and
more affordable and accessible and will one day be a common household
item.
3D printing could eliminate the need for manufacturing almost
anything, including the manufacturing of themselves, as it is possible to print
3D printers. It has already been used to produce clothing, footwear, jewelry,
food, housing, guns, and many other household products. However, 3D

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printing may eliminate jobs for a good portion of the manufacturing

industries. If 3D printing became a regular method in producing clothing it
could eliminate nearly 50 million jobs for woman around the world (Moore). It
could also have a very big effect on the housing markets around the world.
Recently, a Chinese construction company built 10 buildings in 1 day
using a 3D printer (Goldin). This company claims that each one story building
cost about $5000 to build. The ink used to make these buildings is a
mixture of recycled construction cement which makes this process
environmentally friendly as well, minimizing the cost of using hazardous
materials (Goldin). Im sure many are skeptical of the quality of these
buildings but this process is already being developed in the US. If US
construction companies can build housing with these 3D printers, it will
drastically reduce the cost of materials and the cost of compensation to its
employees. As an effect of reduced production costs, the cost to the
consumer of purchasing housing will also be drastically reduced, making
housing more affordable and more accessible to individuals who make lower
wages. However, the jobs of the employees who currently spend days at the
same construction site are in jeopardy. Producing housing through 3D
printers will leave many unemployed.
The biggest threat that 3D printing creates is the potential loss of jobs.
Surely 3D printing will add jobs to society, but will it be enough jobs to make
up the difference in the loss of jobs? This isnt the first time that the
economy was faced with such advanced technology that eliminated several

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jobs. It was only a few decades ago that crops were picked by hand before
the introduction of more cost and time efficient equipment was developed.
When these machines were developed, what did the field laborers do? Surely
they must have been unemployed for at least a small amount of time but
eventually the economy recovered and created jobs for these former field
laborers. Maybe when the use of 3D printing becomes more and more a part
of our world, then all the economy will need is time to recover and time to
create and find new jobs, perhaps the innovating of even greater
technologies that have yet to be discovered.
If technology continues to find new ways to make everything cost and
time efficient, why not lower the number of hours in an American workweek? If the cost of living is reduced by rapidly growing technologies, such
as 3D printers, an employee would be able to take a cut of 10 hours off their
40 hour work week. This would create more jobs for others, because another
employee would be able to take the shift to make up for the lost 10 hours.
In a shift of events, perhaps the most fascinating thing that a 3D
printer can produce is a human organ. According to organdonor.gov, 18
people die each day waiting for an organ donation. Approximately 123,000
people are waiting for someone to donate an organ, but this count goes up
one person every ten minutes (organdonor.gov). This calculates into
approximately 144 human lives affected by this statistic each day. The
amount of transplants averages out to be 79 each day. This means that only
about half of these people waiting for an organ will end up getting one. The

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demand for organs is almost twice as high as the supply for organs. Even if
people are willing to pay a highly expensive price, there still is not enough
organs to go around. Can 3D printers change this? The Last Word from
chapter 3 of our text book discussed the pros and cons of having a legalized
organ market. One of the cons being that the buying and selling of human
organs commercializes human beings and diminishes the special nature of
human life (McConnell et al. 63). Would people still feel this way if the
organs being sold didnt come from another human but was produced by a
3D printer? 3D printing of organs may still be a ways in our future, but
scientists agree that it is definitely possible. This process will involve taking
stem cells (likely from the patient himself) and using them as the ink for
the printer to produce an organ through very selective cell programing. A 2
year old girl has already received a windpipe through this process (Griggs).
Could this solve the problem of having a legalized organ market? This could
save the lives of many and it would require only minimal donation from
others. This would make it easier for the supply of organs to match the
demand. Although 3D printing of organs will come with a price it would
eliminate the months and months of waiting for a donor to pass away or
donate. It would also eliminate the uneasy feeling of not knowing whether or
not an organ is available. However, opposition still exists. Transplanting 3D
printed organs can be considered as artificially prolonging life which many
consider to be Playing God, but is it much different than having a
mechanical limb or other forms of artificial body parts that have already

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been introduced and used in the medical field? Overall, using 3D printing to
print human organs will have a positive effect on the economy because it will
help the supply of organs match the demand in an industry where lives
depend on it. 3D printed organs will likely add jobs rather than eliminate
them like it would in several other industries.
Overall, 3D printing should be continued to be developed and
implemented more and more into manufacturing firms. Although it will
eliminate many jobs in the manufacturing industries, jobs will eventually be
added to make up the difference. 3D printing will increase the optimal output
of many items because the marginal costs will be minimized. What kind of
world would it be if we stopped finding more cost and time efficient
technologies? Some enjoy the world how it is, but I think that new
technologies should definitely be developed.

Works Cited
Goldin, Melissa. "Chinese Company Builds Houses Quickly with 3D Printing."
Mashable. Wright's
Media, 28 Apr. 2014. Web. 8 Aug. 2014.
Griggs, Brandon. "The next Frontier in 3-D Printing: Human Organs." CNN
Tech. Turner
Broadcasting Systems, 3 Apr. 2014. Web. 8 Aug. 2014.

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McConnell, Campbell, Stanley Brue, and Sean Flynn. Microeconomics. 19th

Edition. Boston:
McGraw-Hill, 2012. 63. Print.
Moore, Anne Elizabeth. "3D Printed Guns Won't Hurt You - but Jobs of 50
Million Women Could
Be in Danger." Truthout. Truthout, 15 Sept. 2013. Web. 8 Aug. 2014.
Organdonor.gov. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1 July
2014. Web. 8 Aug.
2014. <organdonor.gov>.