{"title":"Does offshoring boost productivity? A comparison of SMEs and large firms for Germany","authors":"Fabian Kreutzer, Wolfram Berger","doi":"10.17811/ebl.11.2.2022.46-52","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"We use plant-level evidence for Germany to explore the productivity effects of offshoring of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and compare them to those derived for a sample of large companies. SMEs usually face tighter resource constraints than larger companies, thus making it harder for them to reap the potential productivity gains associated with offshoring. We find evidence for the group of SMEs that plants that offshore business activities tend to be among the more productive ones, ex ante. However, offshoring plants lose this edge over their non-offshoring counterparts. The initial productivity gap is reversed, and the productivity of offshoring plants lags behind even several years after offshoring has actually taken place. Neither observation can be confirmed for large companies.","PeriodicalId":43184,"journal":{"name":"Economics and Business Letters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economics and Business Letters","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.17811/ebl.11.2.2022.46-52","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We use plant-level evidence for Germany to explore the productivity effects of offshoring of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and compare them to those derived for a sample of large companies. SMEs usually face tighter resource constraints than larger companies, thus making it harder for them to reap the potential productivity gains associated with offshoring. We find evidence for the group of SMEs that plants that offshore business activities tend to be among the more productive ones, ex ante. However, offshoring plants lose this edge over their non-offshoring counterparts. The initial productivity gap is reversed, and the productivity of offshoring plants lags behind even several years after offshoring has actually taken place. Neither observation can be confirmed for large companies.
期刊介绍:
Economics and Business Letters is an open access journal that publishes both theoretical and empirical quality original papers in all economics and business fields. In addition, relevant discussions on current policy issues will be considered for the Policy Watch section. As general strategy of EBL, the journal will launch calls for papers for special issues on topics of interest, generally with invited guest editors. The maximum length of the letters is limited to 2,500 words.