IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v3y2011i2p38-59.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Theory of Outsourcing and Wage Decline

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas J. Holmes
  • Julia Thornton Snider

Abstract

This paper develops a theory of outsourcing in which the circumstances under which factors of production can grab rents play the leading role. One factor has monopoly power (call this labor) while a second factor does not (call this capital). There are two kinds of production tasks: labor-intensive and capital-intensive. We show that if frictions limiting outsourcing are not too large, in equilibrium labor-intensive tasks are separated from capital-intensive tasks into distinct firms. When a capital-intensive country is opened to free trade, outsourcing increases and labor rents decline. A decrease in outsourcing frictions lowers labor rents. (JEL J31, L22, L24)

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas J. Holmes & Julia Thornton Snider, 2011. "A Theory of Outsourcing and Wage Decline," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 38-59, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:3:y:2011:i:2:p:38-59
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.3.2.38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.3.2.38
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/app/2009-0043_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pol Antràs & Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Offshoring in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 31-77.
    2. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2005. "Outsourcing in a Global Economy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 135-159.
    3. Williamson, Oliver E, 1979. "Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractural Relations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 233-261, October.
    4. Virginia Doellgast & Ian Greer, 2007. "Vertical Disintegration and the Disorganization of German Industrial Relations1," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(1), pages 55-76, March.
    5. Avinash K. Dixit & Gene M. Grossman, 1982. "Trade and Protection with Multistage Production," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(4), pages 583-594.
    6. Arindrajit Dube & Ethan Kaplan, 2010. "Does Outsourcing Reduce Wages in the Low-Wage Service Occupations? Evidence from Janitors and Guards," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 63(2), pages 287-306, January.
    7. repec:hrv:faseco:4784031 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Liao, Wen-Chi, 2010. "Outsourcing and computers: Impact on urban skill level and rent," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2-3), pages 136-154, May.
    9. Gene M. Grossman & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2008. "Trading Tasks: A Simple Theory of Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1978-1997, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pisch, Frank & Berlingieri, Giuseppe, 2022. "Managing Export Complexity: The Role of Service Outsourcing," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 135680, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    2. Bridgman, Benjamin, 2015. "Competition, work rules and productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 136-149.
    3. Carluccio, Juan & Bas, Maria, 2015. "The impact of worker bargaining power on the organization of global firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 162-181.
    4. Stefany Moreno Burbano, 2016. "Estructura vertical de la industria manufacturera colombiana entre 1990 - 2013," Borradores de Economia 14237, Banco de la Republica.
    5. Ho, Wai-Ming, 2021. "International outsourcing, exchange rates, and monetary policy☆," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    6. Carlos Alberto Belchior Doria Carneiro & Geovana Lorena Bertussi, 2018. "Outsourcing And Efficiency Wages: The Case Of Brazil," Anais do XLIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 44th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 233, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas J. Holmes & Julia Thornton Snider, 2009. "A Theory of Outsourcing and Wage Decline," NBER Working Papers 14856, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Pol Antràs & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2009. "Organizations and Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 43-64, May.
    3. Pol Antràs & Davin Chor, 2021. "Global Value Chains," NBER Working Papers 28549, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Meland, Frode & Straume, Odd Rune, 2009. "Can deunionization lead to international outsourcing?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 109-119, February.
    5. Richard Baldwin & Javier Lopez-Gonzalez, 2015. "Supply-chain Trade: A Portrait of Global Patterns and Several Testable Hypotheses," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(11), pages 1682-1721, November.
    6. Céline GIMET & Bernard GUILHON & Nathalie ROUX, 2015. "Social upgrading in globalized production: The case of the textile and clothing industry," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 154(3), pages 303-327, September.
    7. Arnaud Costinot & Jonathan Vogel & Su Wang, 2013. "An Elementary Theory of Global Supply Chains," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 109-144.
    8. Hugo Rojas-Romagosa, 2011. "Wage inequality in trade-in-tasks models," CPB Discussion Paper 196.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    9. Pol Antràs & Robert W. Staiger, 2012. "Offshoring and the Role of Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3140-3183, December.
    10. Sasan Bakhtiari, 2023. "Growing by outsourcing: a tale of two growths," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 411-439, May.
    11. Antrà s, Pol & Yeaple, Stephen R., 2014. "Multinational Firms and the Structure of International Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 55-130, Elsevier.
    12. SUGITA, Yoichi & 杉田, 洋一, 2017. "A Matching Theory of Global Supply Chains," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-62, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    13. Chu, Angus C. & Cozzi, Guido & Furukawa, Yuichi, 2013. "A Simple Theory of Offshoring and Reshoring," Economics Working Paper Series 1309, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    14. Amador, João & Cabral, Sónia, 2008. "International fragmentation of production in the Portuguese economy: What do different measures tell us?," MPRA Paper 9783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Amador, João & Cabral, Sónia, 2009. "Vertical specialization across the world: A relative measure," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 267-280, December.
    16. Lemelin, André & Robichaud, Véronique & Decaluwé, Bernard, 2010. "What Can a CGE Say about the Housing Bubble Burst Crisis and Global Imbalances?," Conference papers 331925, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    17. Baldwin, Richard & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2014. "Trade-in-goods and trade-in-tasks: An integrating framework," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 51-62.
    18. Linda Andersson & Patrik Karpaty & Selen Savsin, 2016. "Firm-level effects of offshoring of materials and services on relative labor demand," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(2), pages 321-350, May.
    19. Elsie L. Echeverri-Carroll, 2013. "Offshore assembly and service industries in Latin America," Chapters, in: Frank Giarratani & Geoffrey J.D. Hewings & Philip McCann (ed.), Handbook of Industry Studies and Economic Geography, chapter 17, pages 411-429, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Ariel T. Burstein & Alexander Monge-Naranjo, 2009. "Foreign Know-How, Firm Control, and the Income of Developing Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 149-195.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:3:y:2011:i:2:p:38-59. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.