Trade, tasks, and training: The effect of offshoring on individual skill upgrading

Arbeitspapier

We offer a theoretical explanation and empirical evidence for a positive link between increased offshoring and individual skill upgrading. Skill upgrading takes the form of on-the-job training, complementing the existing literature, which mainly focuses on the retraining of workers after a direct job displacement through offshoring. To establish a link between offshoring and on-the-job training, we introduce an individual skill upgrading margin into the small-open-economy version of the Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (2008) model of offshoring. In our model offshoring, by scaling up workers' wages, creates previously unexploited skill upgrading possibilities and, thus, leads to more on-the-job training. Using data from German manufacturing, we find strong empirical support for the prediction that increased offshoring is positively related to individual on-the-job training participation.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: University of Tübingen Working Papers in Economics and Finance ; No. 64

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Trade: General ; Trade and Labor Market Interactions ; Economic Impacts of Globalization: Microeconomic Impacts
• Subject: Offshoring ; Tasks ; Skill upgrading ; On-the-job training

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Hogrefe, Jan ; Wrona, Jens
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Tübingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
• (where): Tübingen
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/87702
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:21-opus-71152
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:47 AM CET