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Offshoring and Occupational Specificity of Human Capital

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  • Ritter, Moritz

Abstract

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model in which workers acquire human capital specific to the task they complete. The dynamic nature of the model allows for differentiation between short and long run effects of offshoring on productivity and labour market outcomes. The welfare effects of increased offshoring are unambiguously positive; their magnitude depends on the difference between autarky and world relative prices, but not on the skill-content of offshored and inshored tasks. For reasonable terms of trade, the steady state welfare gains are found to be between 1.8% and 4% in the calibrated model. The distribution of the gains from trade critically depends on the time horizon: in the short term, workers with human capital specific to the inshored occupations gain, while workers with human capital specific to the offshored occupations lose. In the long run, the gains from trade are equally distributed among ex-ante identical agents.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritter, Moritz, 2009. "Offshoring and Occupational Specificity of Human Capital," MPRA Paper 19671, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19671
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    2. Chen, Hong & Liu, Bei & Li, Yi & Cai, Yujie, 2022. "The relationship between negative life events and resilience among Chinese service employees: Nonlinearly moderated by lifestyle habits," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Erhan Artuç & Germán Bet & Irene Brambilla & Guido Porto, 2013. "Trade Shocks and Factor Adjustment Frictions: Implications for Investment and Labor," Department of Economics, Working Papers 101, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    4. Joel Rodrigue & Kunio Tsuyuhara, 2018. "On‐the‐job‐search, wage dispersion and trade liberalization," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(2), pages 452-482, May.
    5. Artuç, Erhan & McLaren, John, 2015. "Trade policy and wage inequality: A structural analysis with occupational and sectoral mobility," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 278-294.
    6. Tobal, Martin, 2011. "A Rationale For Evidence On Service Offshoring," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt5s4056z6, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    7. Illenin O. Kondo, 2013. "Trade Reforms, Foreign Competition, and Labor Market Adjustments in the U.S," International Finance Discussion Papers 1095, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Offshoring; Sectoral Labour Reallocation; Human Capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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