IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v43y2011i4p487-502.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Outsourcing, labour productivity and wage inequality in the US: a primal approach

Author

Listed:
  • Aekapol Chongvilaivan
  • Jung Hur

Abstract

We investigate the linkages among outsourcing activities, labour productivity and wage inequality for skilled and unskilled labour by employing a primal approach that involves estimating a nested constant elasticity of substitution production function, using six-digit North American Industry Classification System US manufacturing industries from 2002 to 2005. First, we find that general outsourcing and international outsourcing have a skill-biased impact on labour productivity. However, the skill-biased impact of general outsourcing on labour productivity is larger than that of international outsourcing. Second, we find that the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labour, which is defined as their marginal productivity gap, can be better explained by general outsourcing than by international outsourcing. These two results imply that the wage inequality of US manufacturing industries during 2002-2005 was mainly due to the skill-biased labour productivity effect of general outsourcing rather than that of international outsourcing.

Suggested Citation

  • Aekapol Chongvilaivan & Jung Hur, 2011. "Outsourcing, labour productivity and wage inequality in the US: a primal approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 487-502.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:43:y:2011:i:4:p:487-502
    DOI: 10.1080/00036840802360302
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840802360302
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036840802360302?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra & Gene M. Grossman & Douglas A. Irwin (ed.), 1996. "The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Papers in Honor of Jagdish Bhagwati," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061864, April.
    2. Wei, Shang-Jin & Amiti, Mary, 2006. "Service Offshoring, Productivity and Employment: Evidence from the US," CEPR Discussion Papers 5475, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Ronald W. Jones, 2000. "Globalization and the Theory of Input Trade," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026210086x, April.
    4. Fuss, Melvyn & McFadden, Daniel, 1978. "Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications (I): The Theory of Production," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 1, number fuss1978.
    5. Fuss, Melvyn & McFadden, Daniel, 1978. "Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications (II): Applications of the Theory of Production," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 2, number fuss1978a.
    6. Ingo Geishecker, 2002. "Outsourcing and the Demand for Low-skilled Labour in German Manufacturing: New Evidence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 313, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    7. Mary Amiti & Shang-Jin Wei, 2006. "Service Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from the United States," NBER Working Papers 11926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Jingmei Ma & Yibing Ding & Hongyu Jia, 2016. "The Impacts of Japanese and US Outsourcing on Chinese Firms," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 126-137, February.
    2. Kovach, Jeremy J. & Swink, Morgan & Rodriguez, Mauricio, 2023. "A novel measure of firm-level production outsourcing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).

    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. Aekapol Chongvilaivan & Jung Hur & Yohanes E. Riyanto, 2009. "Outsourcing Types, Relative Wages, And The Demand For Skilled Workers: New Evidence From U.S. Manufacturing," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 18-33, January.
    2. Baumgarten, Daniel & Irlacher, Michael & Koch, Michael, 2020. "Offshoring and non-monotonic employment effects across industries in general equilibrium," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    3. Agnese, Pablo & Joan Enric, Ricart, 2009. "Offshoring: Facts and numbers at the country level," MPRA Paper 16503, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Linda Andersson & Patrik Karpaty & Selen Savsin, 2017. "Labour Demand, Offshoring and Inshoring: Evidence from Swedish Firm-level Data," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 240-274, February.
    5. Suryahadi, A. & Chen, P. & Tyers, R., 1999. "Openness, Technological Change and Labor Demand in Pre-Crisis Indonesia," Papers 377, Australian National University - Department of Economics.
    6. Agnese, Pablo & Ricart, Joan E., 2009. "Offshoring: Facts and figures at the country level," IESE Research Papers D/792, IESE Business School.
    7. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Consumer preferences and demand systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 210-224, December.
    8. V. Vandenberghe, 2018. "The Contribution of Educated Workers to Firms’ Efficiency Gains: The Key Role of Proximity to the ‘Local’ Frontier," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 259-283, September.
    9. Matteo G. Richiardi & Luis Valenzuela, 2024. "Firm heterogeneity and the aggregate labour share," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 38(1), pages 66-101, March.
    10. Sébastien Marchand, 2011. "Technical Efficiency, Farm Size and Tropical Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonian Forest," Working Papers halshs-00552981, HAL.
    11. Managi, Shunsuke & Opaluch, James J. & Jin, Di & Grigalunas, Thomas A., 2006. "Stochastic frontier analysis of total factor productivity in the offshore oil and gas industry," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 204-215, November.
    12. Antle, John M. & Aitah, Ali S., 1984. "Egypt'S Multiproduct Agricultural Technology And Agricultural Policy," Working Papers 225790, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    13. Krasachat, W., 2000. "Production Structure and Technical Change in Thai Agriculture, 1972-1994," 2000 Conference (44th), January 23-25, 2000, Sydney, Australia 123688, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    14. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    15. Renwick, Alan W. & Revoredo-Giha, Cesar & Reader, Mark A., 2005. "Uk Sugar Beet Farm Productivity Under Different Reform Scenarios: A Farm Level Analysis," Environmental Economy and Policy Research Discussion Papers 31936, University of Cambridge, Department of Land Economy.
    16. Bailey, Alastair & Irz, Xavier T. & Balcombe, Kelvin George, 2003. "An Appliation Of The Stochastic Latent Variable Approach To The Correction Of Sector Level Tfp Calculations In The Face Of Biased Technological Change," 2003 Annual Meeting, August 16-22, 2003, Durban, South Africa 25842, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Julien Daubanes & Pierre Lasserre, 2019. "The supply of non-renewable resources," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1084-1111, August.
    18. Moschini, G. & Moro, D., 1993. "A Food demand System for Canada," Papers 1-93, Gouvernement du Canada - Agriculture Canada.
    19. Sadorsky, P. A., 1989. "Measuring Resource Scarcity in Non-renewable Resources with Inequality Constrained Estimation," Queen's Institute for Economic Research Discussion Papers 275216, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    20. Martin Falk, 2012. "International Outsourcing and Productivity Growth," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 3(1).

    More about this item

    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:taf:applec:v:43:y:2011:i:4:p:487-502. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.