In the past 20 years, the threat of competition from low-wage coun tries in the Third World has been a recurring theme in the discourse of American economic policy. After two decades of job losses in the key manufacturing sectors of the postwar economy, as we strive to under stand the new dynamics of metropolitan labor markets, regional forma tions and shifts, and try to plan for our economic future, many are quick to point to high American wages with a kind of fatalism.