Employment effects of offshoring. An application to Japanese industries, 1980-2005

Agnese, Pablo (2009): Employment effects of offshoring. An application to Japanese industries, 1980-2005.

Abstract

This paper estimates the possible effects of offshoring on Japanese employment. Both the positive and negative effects are here considered as a result of both the offshoring of production (or materials) and services. My main finding is that the net amount of jobs lost to offshoring during the past two and a half decades is negligible, as it was the role of offshoring as a source of sector-bias change in an era of major structural changes for Japan. I argue that, as a natural result of trade and profit-seeking, the positive and negative forces entailed in the relocation of activities worldwide tend to compensate each other. Further, the evidence presented here hints at the possibility of skill upgrading only as a result of services offshoring.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: offshoring; employment; Japan; deindustrialization
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F16 - Trade and Labor Market Interactions; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J23 - Labor Demand

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