Measuring Foreign outsourcing and Labor Market Responses in US Manufacturing

Foreign outsourcing, otherwise known as off-shoring, has become a matter of intense public debate and great concern in both developed countries and developing countries. Yet, there is a lack of good data on foreign outsourcing since the early 1990’s. This paper presents updated measures of foreign outsourcing for the recent period. Its main findings are that the share of foreign-sourced goods in total manufactured inputs almost doubled－from 12.4 percent to 22.7 percent between 1987 and 2003. I then look at the relationship between the measure of foreign outsourcing activity and wages in US manufacturing industries in recent years from 1998 to 2003. The results show that for all workers, the outsourcing level is statistically significantly and negatively associated with industry wage premiums. The estimate suggests that a magnitude of 0.9-a 9% decrease in industry wage premiums tends to accompany a 10% increase in industry outsourcing level. Outsourcing has a bigger effect on the less-skilled workers-industry outsourcing level increases by 10% and industry wage premiums decrease by about 11% in the case of less-skilled workers.