Spatial Development

We present a theory of spatial development. A continuum of locations in a geographic area choose each period how much to innovate (if at all) in manufacturing and services. Locations can trade subject to transport costs and technology di¤uses spatially across locations. The result is an endogenous growth theory that can shed light on the link between the evolution of economic activity over time and space. We apply the model to study the evolution of the U.S. economy in the last few decades and that the model can generate the reduction in the employment share in manufacturing, the increase in service productivity in the second part of the 1990s, the increase in land rents in the same period, as well as several other spatial and temporal patterns

Testing Models of Hierarchy: Span of Control, Compensation and Career Dynamics

In this paper, we test implications from various theories of hierarchies in organizations, in particular the assignment model (Rosen, 1982), the incentives model (Rosen, 1986), the supervision model (Qian, 1994) and the knowledge- based hierarchy model (Garicano, 2000; Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg, 2006). We use a unique dataset providing personnel records from a large European firm in an high tech manufacturing industry from January 1997 to May 2004. An unusually rare feature of this dataset is that relationships within the hierarchy are reported and we can therefore identify the chain of command. Some of our results are in line with the Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg (2006) model of hierarchies when communication costs are decreasing: we observe an increase in the span, an increase in wage inequality between job levels, and the introduction of a new hierarchical level. However, we also find evidence of learning and reallocation of talent within and across job levels, a finding that can not be explained by a static model of knowledge based hierarchy but rather by dynamic models of careers in organizations (e.g. Gibbons and Waldman, 1999). We then propose a new model of hierarchies where individuals accumulate general and managerial human capital on the job, and firms learn gradually about individuals' managerial ability and allocate managers to span according to their expected effective ability. This theory explains our empirical findings and provides a richer theory of careers in hierarchiehierarchy; span of control; wage determination; promotions; careers

Offshoring: Why Do Stories Differ?

This paper identifies critical modeling choices, as well as differences in the driving forces behind offshoring, that may explain differences in results. Offshoring of industry-specific tasks has wage and employment effects that are vastly different from those identified in Grossman & Rossi-Hansberg (2006), depending on how the industries differ in their average and marginal skill-intensities, respectively. Structural adjustment may occur at the intensive margin and the extensive margin (offshoring), and it may occur in opposite directions or the same direction at both margins, again depending on how industries differ in terms of their average and marginal skill-intensity.

Offshoring, Relocation and the Speed of Convergence: Convergence in the Enlarged European Union

Economic convergence of the new member states (NMS) of the EU towards the old EU countries (EU-15), not only in terms of real income, but also in nominal terms, is of paramount importance for the whole of the EU. We build a dynamic CGE model, starting from the Balassa-Samuelson two-sector framework, but modify and enlarge it with forward-looking investment, consumption, and labour mobility behaviour to address several other issues like welfare and sustainability in terms of foreign indebtedness. At the same time we evaluate the impact of convergence on the EU-15 countries also, by endogenising offshoring and the related FDI flows from them to the NMS. Thereby we identify various effects of relocation and globalisation on the EU-15 enlarging the standard set of effects of globalisation and demonstrate the key role of their dynamic nature in the process of convergence. We find that in a general equilibrium setting fears of large adverse effects of a relocation of EU-15 manufacturing to the NMS are not well founded. In contrast, offshoring appears to be a win-win case for both the EU-15 and the NMS in terms of real income. The convergence of the NMS is fairly rapid, but will involve a persistent rapid inflation rate.convergence, relocation, new member states, EU-15

Outsourcing Jobs? Multinationals and US Employment

Critics of globalization claim that US manufacturing firms are being driven to shift employment abroad by the prospects of cheaper labor. Others argue that the availability of low-wage labor has allowed US based firms to survive and even prosper. Yet evidence for either hypothesis, beyond anecdotes, is slim. Using firm-level data collected by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), we estimate the impact on US manufacturing employment of changes in foreign affiliate wages, controlling for changing demand conditions and technological change. We find that the evidence supports both perspectives on globalization. For firms most likely to perform the same tasks in foreign affiliates and at home ("horizontal" foreign investment), foreign and domestic employees appear to be substitutes. For these firms, lower wages in affiliate locations are associated with lower employment in the US. However, for firms which do significantly different tasks at home and abroad ("vertical" foreign investment), foreign and domestic employment are complements. For vertical foreign investment, lower wages abroad are associated with higher US manufacturing employment. These offsetting effects may be combined to show that offshoring is associated with a quantitatively small decline in manufacturing employment. Other factors, such as declining prices for consumer goods, import competition, and falling prices for investment goods (which substitute for labor) play a more important role.

On Convergence in the Spatial AK Growth Models

Recent research in economic theory attempts to study optimal economic growth and spatial location of economic activity in a unified framework. So far, the key result of this literature - asymptotic convergence, even in the absence of decreasing returns to capital - relies on specific assumptions about the objective of the social planner. We show that this result does not depend on such restrictive assumptions and obtains for a broader class of objective functions. We also generalize this finding, allowing for the time-varying technology parameter, and provide an explicit solution for the dynamics of spatial distribution of the capital stock

Managerial versus Production Wages: Offshoring, Country Size and Endowments

In this paper, we explore the role of trade in differentiated final goods as well offshoring of tasks for inequality both within and between countries. We emphasize the distinction between managerial and production labor. Production labor is assumed to be a variable input composed of tradable tasks, while managerial labor is a fixed, non-tradable input. We use a 2-country model recently developed by Grossman & Rossi-Hansberg (2010b) that highlights trade in production task, driven by Marshallian economies of scale. We analyze country size and relative endowment effects on the managerial wage premium as well as on international inequality measured in income per head. We compare these effects in a world where trade is restricted to differentiated final goods with a world with trade in both final goods and production tasks.offshoring, economies of scale, income distribution, international inequality

The rise of offshoring: it's not wine for cloth anymore

Productivity ; Wages

The Theory of the Firm goes Global

What insights can be gained from bringing the theory of the firm to the global economy? I discuss several new features of the world economy that can be explained by incorporating the theory of the firm into the theory of international trade. Among the new features I discuss are the move to flatter corporate hierarchies and the decentralization of authority in firms, the “war for talent”, the rise of CEO pay in rich countries, organizational convergence across countries, and firm heterogeneity