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A Nation of Poets and Thinkers - Less so with Eastern Enlargement? Austria and Germany

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  • Marin, Dalia

Abstract

Many people in the European Union fear that Eastern enlargement will lead to major job losses. More recently, these fears about job losses have extended to high skill labour and IT jobs. Using new firm-level data, this Paper examines whether these fears are justified for Austria and Germany - two countries neighbouring Eastern enlargement. We find that Eastern enlargement leads to surprisingly small job losses, because jobs in Eastern Europe do not compete with jobs in Austria and Germany. Low cost jobs of affiliates in Eastern Europe help Austrian and German firms to stay competitive in an increasingly competitive environment. We also find, however, that multinational firms in Austria and Germany are outsourcing the most skill-intensive activities to Eastern Europe taking advantage of cheap, abundant skilled labour in there. We find that the firms’ outsourcing activities to Eastern Europe are a response to a human capital scarcity in Austria and Germany that became particularly severe in the 1990s. Corporations’ outsourcing of skill-intensive firm activity to Eastern Europe has helped to ease the human capital crisis in both countries. We find that high-skilled jobs transferred to Eastern Europe accounted for 10% of Germany’s and 48% of Austria’s supply of university graduates in the 1990s. We then discuss what can be done to address the skill exodus to Eastern Europe. We show that R&D subsidies do not work in economies with a skill crisis and we suggest liberalizing high-skill labour movement with Eastern enlargement.

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  • Marin, Dalia, 2004. "A Nation of Poets and Thinkers - Less so with Eastern Enlargement? Austria and Germany," CEPR Discussion Papers 4358, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4358
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human capital; R&d policy; Intra-firm trade; Outsourcing to Eastern Europe; multinationals and jobs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • P33 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - International Trade, Finance, Investment, Relations, and Aid

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