IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v117y2012i1p170-173.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating estimates of materials offshoring from US manufacturing

Author

Listed:
  • Feenstra, Robert C.
  • Jensen, J. Bradford

Abstract

When materials offshoring is measured by estimating imported intermediate inputs, a common assumption used is that an industry’s imports of each input, relative to its total demand, is the same as the economy-wide imports relative to total demand: this is the so-called “import comparability” or “proportionality” assumption. A report to the National Research Council identified this assumption as being a significant limitation of current data collection and analysis. In this note we move beyond this assumption to obtain a direct measure of imported materials by industry for the United States in 1997. At the 3-digit I–O industry level, there is a correlation of 0.68 between the offshoring shares made with and without the proportionality assumption, and a higher correlation of 0.87 when the shares are value weighted. While most value-weighted industries have differences below 50 percentage points in the two estimates, there are a significant number of cases that differ by 10 percentage points or more.

Suggested Citation

  • Feenstra, Robert C. & Jensen, J. Bradford, 2012. "Evaluating estimates of materials offshoring from US manufacturing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 170-173.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:1:p:170-173
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2012.04.069
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176512002108
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra, 1996. "U.S. Imports, 1972-1994: Data and Concordances," NBER Working Papers 5515, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Deborah Winkler, William Milberg, 2009. "WP 2009-12 Errors from the “Proportionality Assumption” in the Measurement of Offshoring: Application to German Labor Demand," SCEPA working paper series. SCEPA's main areas of research are macroeconomic policy, inequality and poverty, and globalization. 2009-12, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    3. Feenstra, Robert C. & Jensen, J. Bradford, 2012. "Evaluating estimates of materials offshoring from US manufacturing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 170-173.
    4. Puzzello, Laura, 2012. "A proportionality assumption and measurement biases in the factor content of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 105-111.
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2009. "Importers, Exporters and Multinationals: A Portrait of Firms in the U.S. that Trade Goods," NBER Chapters, in: Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data, pages 513-552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Susan Houseman & Christopher Kurz & Paul Lengermann & Benjamin Mandel, 2011. "Offshoring Bias in U.S. Manufacturing," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(2), pages 111-132, Spring.
    7. Robert C. Feenstra & John Romalis & Peter K. Schott, 2002. "U.S. Imports, Exports, and Tariff Data, 1989-2001," NBER Working Papers 9387, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Justin Pierce & Peter Schott, 2009. "A Concordance Between Ten-Digit U.S. Harmonized System Codes and SIC/NAICS Product Classes and Industries," Working Papers 09-41, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Kalina Manova, 2013. "Credit Constraints, Heterogeneous Firms, and International Trade," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 711-744.
    3. Caroline Flammer, 2015. "Does product market competition foster corporate social responsibility? Evidence from trade liberalization," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1469-1485, October.
    4. Xavier Giroud & Holger M. Mueller, 2009. "Does Corporate Governance Matter in Competitive Industries?," NBER Working Papers 14877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Campello, Murillo & Gao, Janet, 2017. "Customer concentration and loan contract terms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 108-136.
    6. Laura Puzzello & Paul Raschky, 2014. "Global supply chains and natural disasters: implications for international trade," Chapters, in: Benno Ferrarini & David Hummels (ed.), Asia and Global Production Networks, chapter 4, pages 112-147, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Paola Conconi & Giovanni Facchini & Maurizio Zanardi, 2012. "Fast-Track Authority and International Trade Negotiations," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 146-189, August.
    8. Laura Rovegno, 2013. "Trade protection and market power: evidence from US antidumping and countervailing duties," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(3), pages 443-476, September.
    9. Benjamin R. Mandel, 2013. "Chinese exports and U.S. import prices," Staff Reports 591, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    10. Campbell, Douglas L., 2020. "Relative Prices and Hysteresis: Evidence from US Manufacturing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    11. Tomberger, Patrick, 2016. "Labour Income and Employment embodied in Internationally Fragmented Production Chains," Papers 1114, World Trade Institute.
    12. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2006. "Transfer Pricing by U.S.-Based Multinational Firms," NBER Working Papers 12493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Auer, Raphael A. & Schoenle, Raphael S., 2016. "Market structure and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 60-77.
    14. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert E. Lipsey & Lee G. Branstetter & C. Fritz Foley & James Harrigan & J. Bradford Jensen & Lori Kletzer & Catherine Mann & Peter K. Schott & Greg C. Wright, 2010. "Report on the State of Available Data for the Study of International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment," NBER Working Papers 16254, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Conconi, Paola & Facchini, Giovanni & Zanardi, Maurizio, 2014. "Policymakers' horizon and trade reforms: The protectionist effect of elections," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 102-118.
    16. Antrà s, Pol & Yeaple, Stephen R., 2014. "Multinational Firms and the Structure of International Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 55-130, Elsevier.
    17. Peter H. Egger & Katharina Erhardt, 2016. "EU-Swiss trade integration via input-output linkages:," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 67(03), pages 1-23, December.
    18. Cornett, Marcia Millon & Erhemjamts, Otgontsetseg & Tehranian, Hassan, 2019. "Competitive environment and innovation intensity," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 44-59.
    19. Ng, Travis, 2014. "Bailing outsourcing," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 983-993.
    20. Teresa C. Fort & Justin R. Pierce & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "New Perspectives on the Decline of US Manufacturing Employment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 47-72, Spring.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Offshoring; Proportionality; Import comparability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

    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:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:1:p:170-173. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Haili He). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.