What are the economic effects of the repair vs replace decision? Interesting question, that.
If you missed “more local employment of the blue collar type”, go read this:
There is a slight diversion of purchasing strategy, repair rather than replace. This feeds a blue collar industry in the local region.
It used to be, when money was loose, replace with new was the norm. If the repair was 75 percent of the cost of replacement a new motor was ordered, the old motor was scraped, and the country of origin (Mexico, China, Taiwan) benefited. These beautiful USA built, 50 year old, 200 horsepower motors, were going to the scrap heap.
Now the repair industry is swamped.
Africans have known this for a long time, though for them, the causality is the other way around. If you don’t have the communications, transport, logistics and capital it takes to access new products made in far off lands, then you take the next best thing, which is to keep what you have working by repairing it.
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