نابرابری دستمزد اشخاص ماهر و غیر ماهر و برون سپاری خارجی با هزینه های تعدیل نامتقارن

We present a model that can capture the effects of offshore outsourcing on the wedge between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers when costs of adjustment are asymmetric. We identify conditions under which offshore outsourcing activities widen the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the presence of asymmetric adjustment costs. We show how a higher cost of adjustment in the import-competing sector can magnify the offshore outsourcing induced gap between the wages of the skilled and unskilled workers. We also demonstrate the sensitivity of the effects of offshore outsourcing, on the skilled–unskilled wage gap, to asymmetries in the costs of adjustment.

The role of adjustment costs in the structure of the general equilibrium models is well known.1 While a number of econometric studies have provided estimates of adjustment costs2, there is convincing evidence reflecting significant variations in these costs of adjustment3. In this paper, we look at the effects of offshore outsourcing on the wedge between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers when costs of adjustment vary across sectors. Recent research lends increasing support for a greater role that trade has played in raising the relative reward for skilled labor than was suggested by the relevant literature that had accumulated before the 1990s. Claims that trade can explain the observed increase in wage inequality appear4 to be consistent with the predictions of the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson (H–O–S) theory: a. Free and frictionless trade induces each country to specialize in the production of goods that use intensively her relatively abundant factors: a developed country specializes in the production of goods that are intensive in skilled labor and a developing country in goods that are intensive in unskilled labor. b. International competition leads to an increase in the relative wage of high-skilled labor in a developed country if there is an increase in the relative price of the goods she specializes in. Notwithstanding the relatively vast literature documenting and attempting to explain the rise in wage inequality in the developed world, the wage-wedge is now well known as a global phenomenon as the gap continues to widen in the developing countries as well. The outreach of the skilled–unskilled wage inequality to the developing world does not fit well with the H–O–S theory which would predict that a trade-induced increase in the price of unskilled intensive products leads to an increase in the wages of unskilled workers and the decrease in the price of skilled labor intensive products leads to a decline in wages of skilled workers in the developing world.

Our paper constructs a simple general equilibrium model to capture the effects of offshore outsourcing on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality when costs of adjustment are asymmetric in an otherwise H–O–S structure. We show that a rise in the price of the outsourced intermediate input can mitigate the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. Offshore outsourcing activities can widen the gap between the wages of the skilled and unskilled workers when the costs of adjustment are high in the import-competing sector. A higher cost of adjustment in the import-competing sector magnifies the offshore outsourcing induced wedge between the wages of the skilled and unskilled workers. A couple of interesting extensions of our work may involve a) allowing imperfect mobility of factors cooperating with capital11 and b) incorporating the role of trade costs12 as distinct from the costs of adjustments.