Competition and the Location of Overseas Assembly

How does international competition affect overseas outsourcing? While it is commonly believed that international competition enables firms to desert high cost countries in favor of low wage locations, the frequency of such responses may be reduced if the movement of outsourcing activities involves sunk costs. To put these factors in perspective, I study the production decisions of participants in the U.S. overseas assembly program (OAP). A number of interesting regularities emerge. First, the strong positive effect of prior participation on current OAP participation probabilities suggests that sunk costs influence outsourcing choices. Such production persistence is especially strong among foreign assemblers who are responsible for completing a large percentage of value-added. Second, increases in own-country costs and declines in competitor-country costs reduce participation probabilities. In addition, while these persistence and cost effects characterize all overseas assembly choices, these effects are much larger for outsourcing in developing countries. Finally, outsourcing responses appear to reflect differences in “market thickness”, as cost sensitivity generally rises with competitor presence. Taken together, these observations provide empirical support for modeling approaches that feature search costs and partner availability as determinants of outsourcing decisions.

Multinationals and the Creation of Chinese Trade Linkages

This paper studies the relationship between multinational firm proximity and the formation of new export connections by private Chinese exporters between 1997 and 2003. The results indicate that growth in the presence of multinational firms is positively associated with the formation of new trade by local Chinese firms. Further exploration suggests that information spillovers may drive this result, as the positive association due to own-industry multinational presence is particularly strong in contexts where information improvements may be the most helpful. Thus, it appears that a growing presence of multinational firms may enhance the export capabilities of local domestic firms.

Agglomeration Benefits and Location Choice: Evidence from Japanese Manufacturing Investment in the United States

Recent theories of economic geography suggest that firms in the same industry may be drawn to the same locations because proximity generates positive externalities or 'agglomeration effects.' Under this view, chance events and government inducements can have a lasting influence on the geographical pattern of manufacturing. However, most evidence on the causes and magnitude of industry localization has been based on stories, rather than statistics. This paper examines the location choices of 751 Japanese manufacturing plants built in the U.S. since 1980. Conditional logit estimates support the hypothesis that industry-level agglomeration benefits play an important role in location decisions.

Outsourcing Price Decisions: Evidence from U.S. 9802 Imports

This paper studies U.S. overseas assembly imports to identify whether factors related to information or search costs appear to condition outsourcing decisions. The data for 1991-2000 show that U.S. overseas assembly imports were characterized by incomplete pass-through of production and trade costs to import prices, though products assembled in more highly educated countries passed-through a much larger portion of their cost changes. In addition, the price of outsourcing imports responded to competing suppliers' prices, with the largest responses occurring for products in capital-intense industries. These differential price responses suggest that information issues play an important role in the mediation of outsourcing relationships.

OFFSHORE ASSEMBLY FROM THE UNITED STATES: PRODUCTION CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 9802 PROGRAM

We study outsourcing from the United States under the offshore assembly program (OAP). Formerly called the 806/807 provision of the U.S. tariff code, and now renamed the 9802 provision of the Harmonized System code, this program allows U.S. firms to export component parts and have them assembled overseas. When the finished product is imported back into the United States, duties are paid only on the foreign value-added. We estimate the production characteristics of the U.S. OAP activity, and in particular, whether this activity is intensive in the use of non-production labor as compared to the overseas production. We also examine the sensitivity of OAP imports to real exchange rate movements.

The Attraction of Foreign Manufacturing Investments: Investment Promotion and Agglomeration Economies

We study Japanese investments between 1980 and 1992 to assess the effectiveness of state promotion efforts in light of strong agglomeration economies in Japanese investment. Two policy variables are consistently shown to influence the location of investment - foreign trade zones and labor subsidies. We use simulations to explore the impact these policies had on the geographic distribution of Japanese investment. The simulations reveal that in aggregate promotion programs largely offset each other; however, unilateral withdrawal of promotion causes individual states to lose substantial amounts of foreign investment.