Offshoring and firm performance: self-selection, effects on performance, or both ?

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Authors

This paper uses unique new data for German manufacturing enterprises from matched regular surveys and a special purpose survey to investigate the causal effect of relocation of activities to a foreign country on firm performance. Compared to non-offshoring firms, firms that relocated activities were larger and more productive, and had a higher share of exports in total sales. These differences existed the year before some firms started to relocate, and this points to self-selection of "better" firms into offshoring. To investigate the causal effects of offshoring, six different variants of a matching approach are used. Contrary to what is often argued we find no evidence for a large negative causal effect of offshoring on employment in Germany.
Original languageEnglish
JournalReview of World Economics
Volume147
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)217-247
Number of pages31
ISSN1610-2878
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 06.2011

    Research areas

  • Economics - Enterprise panel data, Germany, Offshoring