IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kob/dpaper/dp2011-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Environmental Outsourcing

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew A. Cole

    (Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, UK)

  • Robert J.R. Elliott

    (Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, UK)

  • Toshihiro Okubo

    (Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration (RIEB), Kobe University, Japan)

Abstract

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of firms shifting stages of their production processes overseas. In this paper we investigate whether firms outsource the dirtier stages of production to minimise domestic environmental regulation costs - a process broadly consistent with the pollution haven hypothesis. We develop a theoretical model of environmental outsourcing that focuses on the roles played by firm size and productivity, transport costs and environmental regulations. We test the model's predictions using a firm-level data set for Japan and do find evidence of an 'environmental outsourcing' effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew A. Cole & Robert J.R. Elliott & Toshihiro Okubo, 2011. "Environmental Outsourcing," Discussion Paper Series DP2011-12, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    • Handle: RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2011-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp/academic/ra/dp/English/DP2011-12.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tomiura, Eiichi, 2005. "Foreign outsourcing and firm-level characteristics: Evidence from Japanese manufacturers," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 255-271, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Eiichi Tomiura, 2008. "Foreign outsourcing and the product cycle: evidence from micro data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(13), pages 1019-1022.
    4. Tomiura, Eiichi, 2007. "Foreign outsourcing, exporting, and FDI: A productivity comparison at the firm level," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 113-127, May.
    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. Richard T. Carson & W. Michael Hanemann, & Raymond J. Kopp & Jon A. Krosnick & Robert C. Mitchell & Stanley Presser & Paul A. Rudd & V. Kerry Smith & Michael Conaway & Kerry Martin, 1997. "Temporal Reliability of Estimates from Contingent Valuation," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 73(2), pages 151-163.
    2. Ulltveit-Moe, Karen Helene & Forslid, Rikard & Okubo, Toshihiro, 2011. "Why are firms that export cleaner? International trade and CO2 emissions," CEPR Discussion Papers 8583, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Toshihiro Okubo & Yuta Watabe & Kaori Furuyama, 2016. "Export of Recyclable Materials: Evidence from Japan," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 15(1), pages 134-148, Winter/Sp.
    4. Jota Ishikawa & Toshihiro Okubo, 2017. "Greenhouse-Gas Emission Controls and Firm Locations in North–South Trade," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(4), pages 637-660, August.
    5. Danilo Loconsole & Giacomo Cocetta & Piero Santoro & Antonio Ferrante, 2019. "Optimization of LED Lighting and Quality Evaluation of Romaine Lettuce Grown in An Innovative Indoor Cultivation System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, February.
    6. Ciriaci, Daria & Palma, Daniela, 2010. "Geography, environmental efficiency and Italian economic growth: a spatially-adapted Environmental Kuznets Curve," MPRA Paper 22899, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Li-Chun Huang, 2019. "Consumer Attitude, Concerns, and Brand Acceptance for the Vegetables Cultivated with Sustainable Plant Factory Production Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-14, September.
    8. Md Obyedul Kalam Azad & Katrine Heinsvig Kjaer & Md Adnan & Most Tahera Naznin & Jung Dae Lim & In Je Sung & Cheol Ho Park & Young Seok Lim, 2020. "The Evaluation of Growth Performance, Photosynthetic Capacity, and Primary and Secondary Metabolite Content of Leaf Lettuce Grown under Limited Irradiation of Blue and Red LED Light in an Urban Plant ," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-16, January.

    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. Matthew Cole & Robert Elliott & Toshihiro Okubo, 2014. "International environmental outsourcing," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(4), pages 639-664, November.
    2. Stefano Federico, 2010. "Outsourcing versus Integration at Home or Abroad," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 742, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. WAKASUGI Ryuhei & TODO Yasuyuki & SATO Hitoshi & NISHIOKA Shuichiro & MATSUURA Toshiyuki & ITO Banri & TANAKA Ayumu, 2008. "The Internationalization of Japanese Firms: New Findings Based on Firm-Level Data," Discussion papers 08036, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Fabrice Defever & Farid Toubal, 2007. "Productivity and the Sourcing Modes of Multinational Firms: Evidence from French Firm-Level Data," CEP Discussion Papers dp0842, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Tomohiro Ara, 2014. "Global Sourcing in Industry Equilibrium," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 65(1), pages 93-115, March.
    6. Hyunbae Chun & Jung Hur & Young Gak Kim & Hyeog Ug Kwon, 2017. "Cross-border Vertical Integration and Intra-firm Trade: New Evidence from Korean and Japanese Firm-level Data," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 16(2), pages 126-139, Summer.
    7. Spiros Bougheas & Holger Görg, 2008. "Organizational Forms for Global Engagement of Firms," Discussion Papers 08/33, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    8. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2016. "Factoryless goods producers in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 9-15.
    9. Jung Hur & Hea-Jung Hyun, 2011. "Who Goes Where and How? Firm Heterogeneity in the Choice of FDI Type and Location," Working Papers 1105, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    10. Onur A. Koska & Ngo Van Long & Frank Stähler, 2018. "Foreign direct investment as a signal," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 60-83, February.
    11. Cui, Jingbo & Moschini, GianCarlo, 2020. "Firm internal network, environmental regulation, and plant death," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    12. Joakim Gullstrand & Karin Olofsdotter & Susanna Thede, 2016. "Importers, Exporters and Multinationals: Exploring the Hierarchy of International Linkages," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 495-514, July.
    13. Kohler, Wilhelm & Smolka, Marcel, 2014. "Global sourcing and firm selection," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 411-415.
    14. Seungrae Lee, 2016. "Post-production services and optimal integration strategies for the multinational firm," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(4), pages 597-628, November.
    15. Ding, Haoyuan & Ni, Bei & Xue, Chang & Zhang, Xiaoyu, 2022. "Land holdings and outward foreign direct investment: Evidence from China," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    16. Okubo, Toshihiro & Watabe, Yuta, 2023. "Networked FDI and third-country intra-firm trade," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 591-606.
    17. Chen, Xiaoping & Lu, Yi & Zhu, Lianming, 2017. "Product cycle, contractibility, and global sourcing," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 283-296.
    18. Bauer, Christian J. & Langenmayr, Dominika, 2013. "Sorting into outsourcing: Are profits taxed at a gorilla's arm's length?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 326-336.
    19. Chia-Hui Huang & Tony Chieh-Tse Hou & Chih-Hai Yang, 2013. "FDI modes and parent firms' productivity in emerging economies:Evidence from Taiwan," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(8), pages 1240-1268, December.
    20. Buch, Claudia M. & Koch, Cathérine Tahmee & Koetter, Michael, 2009. "Margins of international banking: is there a productivity pecking order in banking, too?," Discussion Paper Series 2: Banking and Financial Studies 2009,12, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental regulations; Trade; Outsourcing; Firm-level.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • R3 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:kob:dpaper:dp2011-12. 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: Office of Promoting Research Collaboration, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rikobjp.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.