Being the G-7 country with the largest shadow-economy share, we posit that Italy's manufacturing firms - to counter emerging economies' competition - could alternatively offshore or enter the shadow economy. Within this context, we investigate, in a sample of Italian firms, whether internationalised firms outperform purely domestic firms in terms of efficiency, innovativeness and skill composition. Using propensity-score-matching and difference-in-difference techniques we find evidence that: (i) offshoring impacts TFP negligibly but, (ii) labour cost relocation robustly causes offshoring; (iii) offshoring firms are more likely innovative and R&D-oriented; (iv) firms in high- shadow -economy provinces less likely offshore. It is also evidenced that the latter firms show lower TFP and R&D expenditure.
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Paper provided by Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche - Università di Bari in its series series with number
0021.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements O19 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
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