Elasticity of the demand for low-skilled and high-skilled labour in the European Union with respect to foreign outsourcing is estimated, using alternative flexible cost functions. The choice of functional form is apparently not immaterial, as different forms can lead to conflicting conclusions. Tests that can help to discriminate between different forms of functional specification show that a traditional generalized Leontief cost function is often rejected in favour of a minflex Laurent generalized Leontief cost function. Overall, the estimation results show that foreign outsourcing had a significant impact on the demand for low-skilled and high-skilled workers in the sample period. The pattern is however industryspecific and suggests, in line with some recent theoretical models, an ambiguous relationship between outsourcing and labour demand. There is some evidence that high-skilled labour and capital are (relative) complements.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): IX (2006) Issue (Month): (November) Pages: 255-273 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Find related papers by JEL classification: F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation and Testing
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)