Technological change and domestic outsourcing

Antonin Bergeaud, Clément Malgouyres and Clement Mazet-Sonilhac

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Domestic outsourcing has grown substantially in developed countries over the past two decades. This paper addresses the question of the technological drivers of this phenomenon by studying the impact of the staggered diffusion of broadband internet in France during the 2000s. Our results confirm that broadband technology increases firm productivity and the relative demand for high-skill workers. Further, we show that broad-band internet led firms to outsource some non-core occupations to service contractors, both in the low and high-skill segments. In both cases, we find that employment related to these occupations became increasingly concentrated in firms specializing in these activities, and was less likely to be performed in-house within firms specialized in other activities. As a result, after the arrival of broadband internet, establishments become increasingly homogeneous in their occupational composition. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that high-skill workers experience salary gains from being outsourced, while low-skill workers lose out.

Keywords: broadband; firm organization; labor market; outsourcing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G14 G21 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 80 pages
Date: 2021-07-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-ict
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113919/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Technological change and domestic outsourcing (2021)
Working Paper: Technological Change and Domestic Outsourcing (2021)
Working Paper: Technological Change and Domestic Outsourcing (2021)
Working Paper: Technological Change and Domestic Outsourcing (2021)
Working Paper: Technological Change and Domestic Outsourcing (2021)
Working Paper: Technological change and domestic outsourcing (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:113919

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().