Offshoring and Labor Income Risk: An Empirical Investigation

This paper analyses how increased offshoring impacts on labor income risk. It is therefore distinct from a large number of studies explaining the level effects of globalization on the labor market in that it takes a look at effects on the variability of incomes. It provides an assessment that directly connects labor income risk and offshoring trends in a panel setting at the industry level. Importantly, we distinguish between transitory and permanent shocks to individual income. Permanent income risk is defined as variance of shocks to income that do not fade out over time. Contrary to transitory short-term fluctuations, it is furthermore assumed to be uninsurable. It thus has a particular relevance for individual welfare. Our findings suggest that offshoring tends to lower permanent income risk. This effect is particularly strong for offshoring to low-income destinations. Hence, there could be potential aggregate welfare gains when domestic firms increasingly offshore production to foreign countries

Exporting and labor demand : micro-level evidence from Germany

It is widely believed that globalization affcts the extent of employment and wage responses to economic shocks. To provide evidence for this, we analyze the effect of firms' exporting behavior on the elasticity of labor demand. Using rich, German administrative linked employer-employee panel data from 1996 to 2008, we explicitly control for self-selection into exporting and endogeneity concerns. In line with our theoretical model, we find that exporting at both the intensive and extensive margins significantly increases the (absolute value of the) unconditional own-wage labor demand elasticity. This is not only true for the average worker, but also for different skill groups. For the median firm, the elasticity is three-quarters higher when comparing exporting to nonexporting firms

Einige Bemerkungen zu den Bestimmungsgründen und Auswirkungen von Outsourcing auf Basis deutscher Daten

Using German data from the Institute for Employment Research Establishment Panel, this paper constructs two main measures of outsourcing and examines their determinants and consequences for employment. There are some commonalities in the correlates of the two measures of outsourcing, as well as agreement on the absence of adverse employment effects across all industries. For one specification, however, some negative effects are reported for manufacturing industry, balanced by positive effects for the services sector for another. But there are no obvious indications of survival bias. This is because the association between outsourcing and plant closings is predominantly negative, albeit poorly determined

The crisis sensitivity of European countries and regions: stylized facts and spatial heterogeneity

We investigate the impact of the recent global recession on European countries and regions. We first identify the heterogeneous impact of the global recession on individual European countries and regions. We then discuss three classes of explanations for spatial heterogeneity in the severity of the crisis: (i) the extent to which countries are integrated in the global economy via financial and trade linkages, (ii) differences in the institutional framework of countries and (iii) differences in their sectoral composition. We show that especially variation in the sectoral composition contributes to the variation in the effects of the current crisis, both at the country level and at the detailed regional level across Europe. © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved

Do Foreign-Owned Firms Provide Better Working Conditions Than Their Domestic Counterparts? A Comparative Analysis

This paper analyses to what extent working conditions in foreign-owned firms differ from those in their domestic counterparts. It makes three main contributions. First, we replicate the consensus in the empirical literature by applying a standardised methodology to firm-level data for three developed (Germany, Portugal, UK) and two emerging economies (Brazil, Indonesia). We show that, consistent with previous evidence, foreign-owned firms offer substantially higher average wages than domestic firms and that this difference is particularly important in emerging economies. Second, we show that these positive wage effects of foreign takeovers reduce in size when controlling for changes in the composition of the workforce, although they tend to remain positive and statistically significant. However, the wage effects associated with worker movements from domestic to foreign firms are potentially important, particularly in emerging economies. Third, we look not only at wage outcomes but also consider other working conditions such as working hours, job stability and union coverage. We find that foreign takeovers of domestic firms tend to have a small positive effect on wages, but little effect on other aspects of working conditions

European Competition Policy in International Markets

International audienceChanges in the institutional, technological and economic environment raise new challenges to the European competition policy. In this context, it is timely for European authorities to appraise the external dimension of the European competition policy as well as its articulation with current internal reforms. Globalisation can increase the costs of monitoring and seriously reduce the ability of European authorities to tackle cross-border anti-competitive conducts. In addition, conflicts are exacerbated by industrial policy motivations. As it is unlikely that the sole application of the territoriality and extraterritoriality principles to competition rules could yield an optimal international competition system, globalisation calls for higher levels and types of cooperation. Given that bilateral cooperation and especially the implementation of comity principles could be of no value when laws or interests are sources of international conflicts, three main paths could be therefore encouraged: The continuous harmonization of rules through the joint action of OECD and ICN; the higher cooperation in the confidential information exchange; the establishment of global anti-trust institutions. Although WTO is legitimate in judging questions related market access and entry barriers, it is less equipped to assess international hard core cartels or M&A reviews. As a substitute for WTO, a multilevel system, like the EU system, could be promoted. For political and pragmatic reasons, it could be composed in a first step of a hard core of countries like the EU, Japan and the U.S. It could be associated with the creation of an international Court of Justice for competition. In addition to these external reforms, some internal reforms could be required. Competition authorities have to develop further competition advocacy to give a higher priority to competition issues in other EU policies and national regulation. A parallel and complementary reform could consist in making the European competition agency independent from State Members' interference

Integrated sectors - diversified earnings: the (missing) impact of offshoring on wages and wage convergence in the EU27

This paper assesses the impact of international outsourcing/offshoring practices on the process of wage equalization across manufacturing sectors in a sample of EU27 economies (1995-2009). We discriminate between heterogeneous wage effects on different skill categories of workers (low, medium and high skill). The main focus is on the labour market outcomes of vertical integration, so we augment a model of conditional wage convergence through the inclusion of sector-specific broad and narrow outsourcing/offshoring indices based on input-output data (World Input Output Database, April 2012 release). Two-way relations between trade and wages are addressed through the use of a gravity-based sector-level instrument. We find no evidence supporting unconditional skill-specific wage convergence in EU sectors. In a conditional setting, (slow) wage convergence takes place, but international outsourcing plays a negligible role in wage equalization. Moreover, even though regression results indicate that offshoring reduces the wage growth of domestic medium- and low-skilled workers, we show that this negative effect is economically small

Home Firm Performance After Foreign Investments and Divestitures

Being international' has nearly become an undisputed aim for firms in a globalized world. Several papers find a positive relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and the home performance of firms. In this paper we address the 'FDI - export' relationship to better understand this pattern. Furthermore, by presenting first results on firm's post-divestiture employment growth at home we are able to provide a more comprehensive view on fi rm performance after stepping in and out of foreign markets. We apply a propensity score matching technique in combination with a difference-in-difference estimator to analyze the performance dynamics of French firms that invested abroad or carried out foreign divestitures during the period 2000-2007. FDI has on average a positive home firm eff ect in terms of export share, operating turnover and employment. Industry differences reveal that firms in high-tech industries experience a strong increase in their home performance, whereas firm performance in low-tech industries increases only moderately in post-investment periods. In contrast, the divestiture impact on the post-divestiture performance is rather negligible.Der Artikel untersucht die Entwicklung des Firmenerfolgs von französischen Firmen im Heimatmarkt nach ausländischen Markteintritts- und Marktaustrittsentscheidungen im Zeitraum 2000-2007. Hierzu wird ein Propensity Score Matching Verfahren in Kombination mit einem Differenzen-in-Differenzen Schätzer angewandt. Firmen, die erstmalig einen ausländischen Markt über Direktinvestitionen betreten, verfügen im Durchschnitt in den Folgejahren über höhere Exportintensität, Umsatzentwicklung und Beschäftigungswachstum als vergleichbare Firmen, die zum selben Zeitpunkt nicht ins Ausland gegangen sind. Insbesondere Firmen aus Hochtechnologiebranchen profitieren von einer überproportional positiven Firmenentwicklung im Heimatmarkt. Im Gegensatz dazu wirkt sich ein Rückzug aus ausländischen Märkten nur geringfügig auf die Unternehmensentwicklung im Inland aus