IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ffe/journl/v7y2010i1p60-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

To Outsource or Not To Outsource in North-South Trade

Author

Listed:
  • E. Kwan Choi, Jai-Young Choi

    (Dresden University of Technology, Germany)

Abstract

This paper investigates outsourcing and foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions based on factor price differentials in North-South trade when the production is fragmented into two independent processes. It is shown that (a) when the Southern firm does not have the Northern firm-specific technology for a fragmentable process and capital is imperfectly (perfectly) mobile between countries, the Northern firm produces the final product by outsourcing the other fragmentable process from the South via FDI (either FDI or outsourcing to a Southern outsourcee); (b) when the Southern firm acquires the Northern firm-specific technology for the fragmentable process and capital is imperfectly (perfectly) mobile, only the Northern firm produces the final product by outsourcing the other process via FDI and drives out the Southern firm from the world market (both the Northern and Southern firms produce the final product); (c) in all the cases, outsourcing is unidirectional from the North to the South.

Suggested Citation

  • E. Kwan Choi, Jai-Young Choi, 2010. "To Outsource or Not To Outsource in North-South Trade," Frontiers in Finance and Economics, SKEMA Business School, vol. 7(1), pages 60-81, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ffe:journl:v:7:y:2010:i:1:p:60-81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ffe.esc-lille.com/papers/Vol7-1ms236Choi.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wilhelm Kohler, 2004. "International outsourcing and factor prices with multistage production," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(494), pages 166-185, March.
    2. Elhanan Helpman, 2006. "Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 589-630, September.
    3. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2004. "Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 300-316, March.
    4. Alan V. Deardorff, 2001. "International Provision of Trade Services, Trade, and Fragmentation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 233-248, May.
    5. Long, Ngo Van, 2005. "Outsourcing and technology spillovers," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 297-304.
    6. Gorg, Holger & Hanley, Aoife, 2005. "Labour demand effects of international outsourcing: Evidence from plant-level data," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 365-376.
    7. Baldwin, Richard E. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P., 2001. "Multiproduct multinationals and reciprocal FDI dumping," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 429-448, August.
    8. Hartmut Egger & Peter Egger, 2000. "Outsourcing and skill-specific employment in a small economy: Austria and the fall of the Iron Curtain," Economics working papers 2000-24, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    9. Jagdish Bhagwati & Arvind Panagariya, 2004. "The Muddles over Outsourcing," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 93-114, Fall.
    10. 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.
    11. Zhao, Laixun, 2001. "Unionization, vertical markets, and the outsourcing of multinationals," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 187-202, October.
    12. Chi-Chur Chao & Eden S. H. Yu, 1993. "Content Protection, Urban Unemployment and Welfare," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 26(2), pages 481-492, May.
    13. Choi, E. Kwan, 2007. "To outsource or not to outsource in an integrated world," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 521-527.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Choi, Jai-Young & Yu, Eden S. H., 2018. "International Outsourcing, Environmental Costs, and Welfare," ADBI Working Papers 848, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    2. Choi, Jai-Young, 2016. "International outsourcing, terms of trade and non-immiserization," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 222-233.
    3. Choi, E. Kwan & Choi, Jai-Young, 2013. "Financial advantage, outsourcing and FDI under wage uncertainty," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 260-267.
    4. João Amador & Sónia Cabral, 2014. "Global Value Chains: Surveying Drivers, Measures and Impacts," Working Papers w201403, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    5. Wilhelm Kohler, 2007. "The Bazaar Effect, Unbundling of Comparative Advantage, and Migration," CESifo Working Paper Series 1932, CESifo.
    6. Jai-Young Choi & Hamid Beladi, 2014. "Internal and external gains from international outsourcing," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 299-314, March.
    7. Rosario Crinò, 2009. "Offshoring, Multinationals And Labour Market: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 197-249, April.
    8. Urban, Dieter M & Weder di Mauro, Beatrice & Moser, Christoph, 2009. "Offshoring, Firm Performance and Establishment-Level Employment: Identifying Productivity and Downsizing Effects," CEPR Discussion Papers 7455, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Joseph Francois & Bernard Hoekman, 2010. "Services Trade and Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 642-692, September.
    10. Pol Antràs & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2009. "Organizations and Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 43-64, May.
    11. Lutz Arnold & Stefanie Trepl, 2015. "A North-South Trade Model of Offshoring and Unemployment," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 999-1039, November.
    12. Wilhelm Kohler & Jens Wrona, 2010. "Offshoring Tasks, yet Creating Jobs?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3019, CESifo.
    13. Elisa Borghi & Rosario Crinò, 2013. "Service offshoring and wages: worker-level evidence from Italy," LIUC Papers in Economics 264, Cattaneo University (LIUC).
    14. Rosario Crinò, 2012. "Service Offshoring and the Skill Composition of Labour Demand," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(1), pages 20-57, February.
    15. Nana Bourtchouladze, 2007. "Offshoring and Heterogeneous Firms: One Job Offshored, One Job Lost?," IHEID Working Papers 28-2007, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised Dec 2007.
    16. 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.
    17. Hartmut Egger & Udo Kreickemeier & Jens Wrona, 2017. "Offshoring Domestic Jobs," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Trade and Labor Markets Welfare, Inequality and Unemployment, chapter 2, pages 27-70, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Daniel CHIQUIAR & Martín TOBAL & Renato YSLAS, 2019. "Measuring and understanding trade in service tasks," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 158(1), pages 169-190, March.
    19. 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.
    20. Anna Giunta & Domenico Scalera & Francesco Trivieri & Jeffrey B. Nugent & Mariarosaria Agostino, 2011. "Firm Productivity, Organizational Choice and Global Value Chain," Working Papers 2011R09, Orkestra - Basque Institute of Competitiveness.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    soutsourcing; north-south trade; foreign direct investment; fragmentable process;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business

    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:ffe:journl:v:7:y:2010:i:1:p:60-81. 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: Sophie Bodo (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ffe.esc-lille.com .

    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.