Off-shoring, specialization and R&D

This paper investigates whether off-shoring promotes technological specialization by reallocating resources towards high-tech industries and/or stimulating within industry R&D. Using data for the US, Japan and Europe, our results show that material off-shoring promotes high-tech specialization through input reallocation between sectors, while service off-shoring favours technologically advanced production by increasing within-industry productivity, mainly via its positive impact on R&D. Conversely, we find that the increasing fragmentation of core production tasks, captured by narrow off-shoring, has adverse effects on technological specialisation, which suggests that this type of off-shoring is mainly pursued for cost-reduction motives.

© 2016 The Author. Review of Income and Wealth published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.
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