A Simple Model of Offshore Outsourcing,Technology Upgrading and Welfare

Abstract

We adapt Yeaple's (2005) heterogeneous agents framework to model firms in the North as making explicit offshore outsourcing decisions to cheap-labor economies. Globalization results from a lowering of the set-up costs incurred when engaging in offshore activities. We highlight how firms'technology transformations due to global- ization will induce skill upgrading in the North, increase aggregate productivity, av- erage wages and therefore total welfare at the cost of increased wage inequalities. We analytically derive mild conditions under which all consumers-including lower-skilled workers-will nevertheless gain from the surge of offshore outsourcing. A parameter- ized version of the model roughly calibrated on U.S. data is then numerically explored and confirms our positive welfare predictions.Offshore outsourcing; Globalization; Skill upgrading, Technology upgrading; Firm heterogeneity