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-thejob 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 a variant of the Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (2008) model of offshoring. By scaling up worker's wages, offshoring in our model creates previously unexploited skill upgrading possibilities and, thus, leads to more on-the-job training. Using data from German manufacturing, we establish a causal link between the growth in industry-level offshoring and an increased on-the-job training propensity at the individual level.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-3-86304-147-2
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: DICE Discussion Paper ; No. 148

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): Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)
• (where): Düsseldorf
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/98161
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET