IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/30683.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Responsible Sourcing? Theory and Evidence from Costa Rica

Author

Listed:
  • Alonso Alfaro-Urena
  • Benjamin Faber
  • Cecile Gaubert
  • Isabela Manelici
  • Jose P. Vasquez

Abstract

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) increasingly impose “Responsible Sourcing” (RS) standards on their suppliers worldwide, including requirements on worker compensation, benefits and working conditions. Are these policies just “hot air” or do they impact exposed suppliers and their workers? What is the welfare incidence of RS in sourcing countries? To answer these questions, we develop a quantitative general equilibrium (GE) model of RS and combine it with a unique new database. In the theory, we show that the welfare implications of RS are ambiguous, depending on an interplay between what is akin to an export tax (+) and a labor market distortion (–). Empirically, we combine the near-universe of RS rollouts by MNE subsidiaries in Costa Rica since 2009 with firm-to-firm transactions and matched employer-employee microdata. We find that RS rollouts lead to significant reductions in firm sales and employment at exposed suppliers, an increase in their salaries to initially low-wage workers and a reduction in their low-wage employment share. We then use the estimated effects and the microdata to calibrate the model and quantify GE counterfactuals. We find that while MNE RS policies have led to significant gains among the roughly one third of low-wage workers employed at exposed suppliers ex ante, the majority of low-wage workers lose due to adverse indirect effects on their wages and the domestic price index.

Suggested Citation

  • Alonso Alfaro-Urena & Benjamin Faber & Cecile Gaubert & Isabela Manelici & Jose P. Vasquez, 2022. "Responsible Sourcing? Theory and Evidence from Costa Rica," NBER Working Papers 30683, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30683
    Note: DEV ITI PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w30683.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alain de Janvry & Craig McIntosh & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2015. "Fair Trade and Free Entry: Can a Disequilibrium Market Serve as a Development Tool?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 567-573, July.
    2. Macchiavello, Rocco & Miquel-Florensa, Josepa, 2019. "Buyer-Driven Upgrading in GVCs: The Sustainable Quality Program in Colombia," CEPR Discussion Papers 13935, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    4. Deborah Goldschmidt & Johannes F. Schmieder, 2017. "The Rise of Domestic Outsourcing and the Evolution of the German Wage Structure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1165-1217.
    5. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    6. Podhorsky, Andrea, 2013. "Certification programs and north-south trade," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 90-104.
    7. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2007. "Retailing public goods: The economics of corporate social responsibility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1645-1663, September.
    8. Rebecca Diamond, 2016. "The Determinants and Welfare Implications of US Workers' Diverging Location Choices by Skill: 1980-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 479-524, March.
    9. Podhorsky, Andrea, 2015. "A positive analysis of Fairtrade certification," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 169-185.
    10. Raluca Dragusanu & Eduardo Montero & Nathan Nunn, 2022. "The Effects of Fair Trade Certification: Evidence from Coffee Producers in Costa Rica," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1743-1790.
    11. Piet Eichholtz & Nils Kok & John M. Quigley, 2010. "Doing Well by Doing Good? Green Office Buildings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2492-2509, December.
    12. Pamina Koenig & Sebastian Krautheim & Claudius Löhnert & Thierry Verdier & Thierry Verdier, 2021. "Local Global Watchdogs: Trade, Sourcing and the Internationalization of Social Activism," CESifo Working Paper Series 9068, CESifo.
    13. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    14. Hjort, Jonas & Li, Xuan & Sarsons, Heather, 2020. "Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals," CEPR Discussion Papers 14465, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Esteban Méndez-Chacón & Diana Van Patten, 2021. "Multinationals, Monopsony, and Local Development: Evidence from the United Fruit Company," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 46, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    16. Hart, Oliver D. & Zingales, Luigi, 2017. "Companies Should Maximize Shareholder Welfare Not Market Value," Working Papers 267, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    17. Alonso Alfaro-Ureña & Isabela Manelici & Jose P Vasquez, 2022. "The Effects of Joining Multinational Supply Chains: New Evidence from Firm-to-Firm Linkages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(3), pages 1495-1552.
    18. Faber, Benjamin & Krause, Benjamin & Sánchez de la Sierra, Raúl, 2017. "Artisanal Mining, Livelihoods, and Child Labor in the Cobalt Supply Chain of the Democratic Republic of Congo," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt17m9g4wm, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    19. Alonso Alfaro Urena & Isabela Manelici & Jose P. Vasquez, 2021. "The Effects of Multinationals on Workers: Evidence from Costa Rican Microdata," Working Papers 285, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    20. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    21. Beata Smarzynska Javorcik, 2004. "Does Foreign Direct Investment Increase the Productivity of Domestic Firms? In Search of Spillovers Through Backward Linkages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 605-627, June.
    22. Colin J. Hottman & Stephen J. Redding & David E. Weinstein, 2016. "Quantifying the Sources of Firm Heterogeneity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1291-1364.
    23. Ariel Burstein & Jonathan Vogel, 2017. "International Trade, Technology, and the Skill Premium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(5), pages 1356-1412.
    24. Hart, Oliver & Zingales, Luigi, 2017. "Companies Should Maximize Shareholder Welfare Not Market Value," Journal of Law, Finance, and Accounting, now publishers, vol. 2(2), pages 247-275, November.
    25. David W. Berger & Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Minimum Wages, Efficiency and Welfare," NBER Working Papers 29662, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Herkenhoff, Philipp & Krautheim, Sebastian, 2022. "The international organization of production in the regulatory void," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    27. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    28. Suphanit Piyapromdee, 2021. "The Impact of Immigration on Wages, Internal Migration, and Welfare," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(1), pages 406-453.
    29. Ann Harrison & Jason Scorse, 2022. "Multinationals and Anti-Sweatshop Activism," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 13, pages 291-317, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    30. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    31. Bossavie, Laurent & Cho, Yoonyoung & Heath, Rachel, 2023. "The effects of international scrutiny on manufacturing workers: Evidence from the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    32. T. H. Gindling & Nadwa Mossaad & Juan Diego Trejos, 2015. "The Consequences of Increased Enforcement of Legal Minimum Wages in a Developing Country," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(3), pages 666-707, May.
    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. Herkenhoff, Philipp & Krautheim, Sebastian & Semrau, Finn Ole & Steglich, Frauke, 2024. "Corporate Social Responsibility along the global value chain," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    2. Jerónimo Carballo & Ignacio Marra de Artiñano & Christian Volpe Martincus, 2021. "Information Frictions, Investment Promotion, and Multinational Production: Firm-Level Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9043, CESifo.
    3. Datta, Nikhil & Machin, Stephen, 2024. "Government Contracting and Living Wages > Minimum Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 17117, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Grier, Kevin & Mahmood, Towhid & Powell, Benjamin, 2023. "Anti-sweatshop activism and the safety-employment tradeoff: Evidence from Bangladesh's Rana Plaza disaster," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 174-190.
    5. Herkenhoff, Philipp & Krautheim, Sebastian & Semrau, Finn Ole & Steglich, Frauke, 2024. "Corporate Social Responsibility along the global value chain," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 301393, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Laura Boudreau & Julia Cajal-Grossi & Rocco Macchiavello, 2023. "Global Value Chains in Developing Countries: A Relational Perspective from Coffee and Garments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 37(3), pages 59-86, Summer.
    7. Gonzalez, Felipe & Coy, Felipe & Prem, Mounu & von Dessauer, Cristine, 2022. "Uncertainty from dictatorship to democracy: Evidence from business communications," SocArXiv gz934, Center for Open Science.
    8. Mari Tanaka, 2023. "Ethical production and export performance across destinations: evidence from Myanmar," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 413-437, July.

    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. Leone, Fabrizio, 2021. "Foreign Ownership and Robot Adoption," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2111, CEPREMAP.
    2. Fabrizio Leone, 2023. "Multinationals, robots and the labor share," CEP Discussion Papers dp1900, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Herkenhoff, Philipp & Krautheim, Sebastian & Semrau, Finn Ole & Steglich, Frauke, 2024. "Corporate Social Responsibility along the global value chain," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    4. Herkenhoff, Philipp & Krautheim, Sebastian & Semrau, Finn Ole & Steglich, Frauke, 2024. "Corporate Social Responsibility along the global value chain," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 301393, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Huang, Chenchen & Luo, Di & Mukherjee, Soumyatanu & Mishra, Tapas, 2022. "To Acquire or to Ally? Managing Partners’ Environmental Risk in International Expansion," MPRA Paper 121808, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 Jan 2023.
    6. ITO Tadashi & TANAKA Ayumu, 2023. "Inward Foreign Direct Investment, Transactions, and Domestic Firms' Performance: Evidence from firm-to-firm transaction linkage," Discussion papers 23026, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    7. Bas Scheer & Wiljan van den Berge & Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2022. "Alternative Work Arrangements and Worker Outcomes: Evidence from Payrolling," CPB Discussion Paper 435, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    8. Michele Fioretti, 2022. "Caring or Pretending to Care? Social Impact, Firms' Objectives, and Welfare (former title: Social Responsibility and Firm's Objectives)," SciencePo Working papers hal-03393065, HAL.
    9. Abebe, Girum & McMillan, Margaret & Serafinelli, Michel, 2022. "Foreign direct investment and knowledge diffusion in poor locations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    10. Elisa Navarra, 2022. "Stock Market Response to Firms’ Misconduct," Working Papers ECARES 2022-40, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. Jaraitė, Jūratė & Kurtyka, Oliwia & Ollivier, Hélène, 2022. "Take a ride on the (not so) green side: How do CDM projects affect Indian manufacturing firms’ environmental performance?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    12. Simon Freyaldenhoven & Christian Hansen & Jorge Perez Perez & Jesse Shapiro, 2021. "Visualization, Identification, and stimation in the Linear Panel Event-Study Design," Working Papers 21-44, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    13. Mikhail Mamonov & Anna Pestova & Steven Ongena, 2023. "“Crime and Punishment”? How Banks Anticipate and Propagate Global Financial Sanctions," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp753, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    14. Arenas-Arroyo, Esther & Schmidpeter, Bernhard, 2022. "Spillover effects of immigration policies on children's human capital," Ruhr Economic Papers 974, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    15. Kayaoglu, Aysegul, 2022. "Do refugees cause crime?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7fsnj6af7v9ncrf76qn5p5on9e is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Mark Kattenberg & Bas Scheer & Jurre Thiel, 2023. "Causal forests with fixed effects for treatment effect heterogeneity in difference-in-differences," CPB Discussion Paper 452, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Simon Bensnes & Ingrid Huitfeldt & Edwin Leuven, 2023. "Reconciling estimates of the long-term earnings effect of fertility," Discussion Papers 1004, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    19. Freise, Diana & Schmitz, Hendrik & Westphal, Matthias, 2022. "Late-career unemployment and cognitive abilities," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    20. Alexander Karaivanov & Dongwoo Kim & Shih En Lu & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2022. "COVID-19 vaccination mandates and vaccine uptake," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(12), pages 1615-1624, December.
    21. Davidson, Carl & Heyman, Fredrik & Matusz, Steven & Sjöholm, Fredrik & Chun Zhu, Susan, 2022. "How International Experience Helps Shape Labor Market Outcomes," Working Paper Series 1453, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 09 Jun 2024.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F63 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Economic Development
    • O24 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Trade Policy; Factor Movement; Foreign Exchange Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:30683. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.