IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/asieco/v23y2012i1p39-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Outsourcing and productivity: Evidence from Korean data

Author

Listed:
  • Lin, Songhua
  • Ma, Alyson C.

Abstract

This paper aims to provide the first investigation of the productivity effect of outsourcing by using the Korean industry data at the three-digit ISIC level. We find that there are positive productivity gains from material outsourcing. The impact of material outsourcing increases when we account for the share of imports from China. This is due to the growth of Chinese exports to Korea over the recent years. Moreover, the results also suggest that during our sample period Korea's experiment with service outsourcing did not lead to an increase in its productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin, Songhua & Ma, Alyson C., 2012. "Outsourcing and productivity: Evidence from Korean data," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 39-49.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:23:y:2012:i:1:p:39-49
    DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2011.11.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049007811001096
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.asieco.2011.11.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sourafel Girma & Holger Görg, 2004. "Outsourcing, Foreign Ownership, and Productivity: Evidence from UK Establishment‐level Data," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(5), pages 817-832, November.
    2. F. Daveri & C. Jona-Lasinio, 2007. "Off-shoring and productivity growth in the Italian manufacturing industries," Economics Department Working Papers 2007-EP08, Department of Economics, Parma University (Italy).
    3. Holger Görg & Aoife Hanley & Eric Strobl, 2008. "Productivity effects of international outsourcing: evidence from plant‐level data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 670-688, May.
    4. Gene M. Grossman & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "The rise of offshoring: it's not wine for cloth anymore," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 59-102.
    5. Alexander Hijzen & Tomohiko Inui & Yasuyuki Todo, 2010. "Does Offshoring Pay? Firm‐Level Evidence From Japan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 880-895, October.
    6. Egger, Peter & Pfaffermayr, Michael & Wolfmayr-Schnitzer, Yvonne, 2001. "The international fragmentation of Austrian manufacturing: The effects of outsourcing on productivity and wages," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 257-272, November.
    7. Robert C. Feenstra, 2007. "Globalization and Its Impact on Labour," wiiw Working Papers 44, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    8. Mr. Kevin C Cheng, 2004. "A Reexamination of Korea’s Trade Flows: What Has Changed and What Explains These Changes?," IMF Working Papers 2004/145, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Catherine L. Mann, 2003. "Globalization of IT Services and White Collar Jobs: The Next Wave of Productivity Growth," Policy Briefs PB03-11, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    10. Kasahara, Hiroyuki & Rodrigue, Joel, 2008. "Does the use of imported intermediates increase productivity? Plant-level evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 106-118, August.
    11. Francesco Daveri & Cecilia Jona-Lasinio, 2008. "Off-shoring and Productivity Growth in the Italian Manufacturing Industries -super-‡," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 54(3), pages 414-450, September.
    12. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    13. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    14. Ekholm, Karolina & Hakkala, Katariina, 2005. "The Effect of Offshoring on Labor Demand: Evidence from Sweden," Working Paper Series 654, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    15. Gorg, Holger & Hanley, Aoife, 2005. "International outsourcing and productivity: evidence from the Irish electronics industry," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 255-269, August.
    16. Keiko Ito & Kiyoyasu Tanaka, 2012. "Does Material and Service Offshoring Improve Domestic Productivity? Evidence from Japanese Manufacturing Industries," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robert M Stern (ed.), Quantitative Analysis Of Newly Evolving Patterns Of International Trade Fragmentation, Offshoring of Activities, and Vertical Intra-Industry Trade, chapter 2, pages 49-99, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Mary Amiti & Shang‐Jin Wei, 2009. "Service Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from the US," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 203-220, February.
    18. Egger, Hartmut & Egger, Peter, 2001. "Cross-border sourcing and outward processing in EU manufacturing," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 243-256, November.
    19. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    20. ITO Banri & WAKASUGI Ryuhei & TOMIURA Eiichi, 2008. "Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from Japanese Firm-level Data," Discussion papers 08028, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    21. Ando, Mitsuyo, 2006. "Fragmentation and vertical intra-industry trade in East Asia," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 257-281, December.
    22. Sanghoon Ahn & Kyoji Fukao & Keiko Ito, 2008. "Outsourcing in East Asia and its impact on the Japanese and Korean Labour Markets," OECD Trade Policy Papers 65, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jingmei Ma & Yibing Ding & Hongyu Jia, 2016. "The Impacts of Japanese and US Outsourcing on Chinese Firms," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 126-137, February.
    2. Zhou Wei & Adel Ben Youssef, 2012. "The productivity impact of international technology transfer in China: Empirical investigation on Chinese regions," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1590-1603.
    3. Peng, Fei & Peng, Langchuan & Wang, Zheng, 2021. "How do VAT reforms in the service sectors impact TFP in the manufacturing sector: Firm-level evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. João Amador & Sónia Cabral, 2014. "Global Value Chains: Surveying Drivers, Measures and Impacts," Working Papers w201403, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    2. Victor Stolzenburg & Daria Taglioni & Deborah Winkler, 2019. "Economic upgrading through global value chain participation: which policies increase the value-added gains?," Chapters, in: Stefano Ponte & Gary Gereffi & Gale Raj-Reichert (ed.), Handbook on Global Value Chains, chapter 30, pages 483-505, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Amador, João & Cabral, Sónia, 2008. "International fragmentation of production in the Portuguese economy: What do different measures tell us?," MPRA Paper 9783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. International Monetary Fund, 2014. "France: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2014/183, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Rosario Crinò, 2009. "Offshoring, Multinationals And Labour Market: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 197-249, April.
    6. Seok, Jun Ho & Saghaian, Sayed H., 2016. "The Impact of Service Offshoring on Agriculture and Food Sector Productivity Using the World Input-Output Table," 2016 Annual Meeting, February 6-9, 2016, San Antonio, Texas 229704, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    7. Andrea F. Presbitero & Matteo G. Richiardi & Alessia A. Amighini, 2015. "Is labor flexibility a substitute to offshoring? Evidence from Italian manufacturing," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 142, pages 81-93.
    8. Martin Borowiecki & Bernhard Dachs & Doris Hanzl-Weiss & Steffen Kinkel & Johannes Pöschl & Magdolna Sass & Thomas Christian Schmall & Robert Stehrer & Andrea Szalavetz, 2012. "Global Value Chains and the EU Industry," wiiw Research Reports 383, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    9. Bernhard Michel & François Rycx, 2014. "Productivity Gains and Spillovers from Offshoring," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 73-85, February.
    10. Rosario Crinò, 2012. "Service Offshoring and the Skill Composition of Labour Demand," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(1), pages 20-57, February.
    11. Ohnemus, Jörg, 2009. "Productivity effects of business process outsourcing: a firm-level investigation based on panel data," ZEW Discussion Papers 09-088, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Amador, João & Cabral, Sónia, 2014. "Global value chains: surveying drivers and measures," Working Paper Series 1739, European Central Bank.
    13. Burnett, Perry & Cutler, Harvey, 2018. "The transitional impacts of material and service offshoring," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 136-150.
    14. Martin Falk, 2012. "International Outsourcing and Productivity Growth," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 3(1).
    15. Roberto Antonietti, 2016. "From outsourcing to productivity, passing through training: microeconometric evidence from Italy," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5), pages 407-425, July.
    16. Giuliano Conti & Alessia Lo Turco & Daniela Maggioni, 2014. "Rethinking the import-productivity nexus for Italian manufacturing," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 589-617, November.
    17. ITO Banri & WAKASUGI Ryuhei & TOMIURA Eiichi, 2008. "Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from Japanese Firm-level Data," Discussion papers 08028, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    18. Ioannis Bournakis & Michela Vecchi & Francesco Venturini, 2018. "Off‐Shoring, Specialization and R&D," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(1), pages 26-51, March.
    19. Aekapol Chongvilaivan & Shandre M. Thangavelu, 2012. "Outsourcing and Labour Productivity: Case of Singapore Manufacturing Sector," SCAPE Policy Research Working Paper Series 1201, National University of Singapore, Department of Economics, SCAPE.
    20. Mariotti, Sergio & Nicolini, Marcella & Piscitello, Lucia, 2013. "Vertical linkages between foreign MNEs in service sectors and local manufacturing firms," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 133-145.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Outsourcing; Korea; International trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:23:y:2012:i:1:p:39-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/asieco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.