The Margins of Global Sourcing: Theory and Evidence from U.S. Firms

Abstract

and Yale. We thank Jim Davis at the Boston RDC for invaluable support with the disclosure process. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Spatial exporters

“…Together, these assumptions elude the question of where to go. Antràs et al (2014) propose another solution to deal with the interdependence of firm's entry decisions. Building on Jia (2008), Antràs et al (2014) rely on complementarities in the global sourcing decisions of firms to study extended gravity effects on the import side.…”

“…Antràs et al (2014) propose another solution to deal with the interdependence of firm's entry decisions. Building on Jia (2008), Antràs et al (2014) rely on complementarities in the global sourcing decisions of firms to study extended gravity effects on the import side. Lawless (2013) shows that entry decisions of firms are correlated with their export status in previous geographically close export destinations.…”

Offshoring and Skill-Upgrading in French Manufacturing: A Heckscher-Ohlin-Melitz View

“…Our theory also delivers complementarities across offshoring destinations, though generated by a different mechanism than in Antràs et al (2014). In particular, our model predicts that the impact of importing an additional country-product combination on a firm's global offshoring strategy depends on the country's factor abundance and the input's factor intensity: in the case of a firm located in a skill-abundant country, having lower offshoring costs to other countries or for other inputs leads firms to import more from a given location.…”

“…In a model with heterogeneous firms but with no factor proportions trade, Antràs et al (2014) characterize offshoring patterns for U.S. firms and estimate them structurally using a quantitative multi-country, many-good modelà la Eaton and Kortum (2002) that features complementarities between sourcing locations. Similarly to Antràs et al (2014), our model delivers a natural pecking order of offshoring destinations, which, however, is determined by the forces of factorproportions-driven comparative advantage.…”

“…Similarly to Antràs et al (2014), our model delivers a natural pecking order of offshoring destinations, which, however, is determined by the forces of factorproportions-driven comparative advantage. In particular, firms from a skill-abundant country would first import the most labor-intensive inputs from the most labor-abundant countries, as these provide the largest cost reductions.…”