Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/46332 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 3484
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
We embed a North-South trade model into an incomplete contracts setting where the production of heterogeneous firms can be geographically separated. When a Northern headquarter contracts with a Southern supplier instead of a Northern supplier, the presence of international incomplete contracts may lead to a higher price. As a result, trade liberalization, that induces offshoring, is not necessarily welfare-enhancing for consumers, despite the lower cost of labor in the South. In addition, firms which use the supplier's component intensively, offshore their supplier in the South using outsourcing. As trade costs fall, less component-intensive firms also offshore, but by vertically integrating their supplier. We argue that this organizational change increases production-shifting in the South, implying that a larger number of varieties will be produced in the South where contracts are incomplete. We show that, this may reduce consumer welfare in both countries.
Subjects: 
consumer welfare
incomplete contracts
hold-up problem
JEL: 
F23
L22
R30
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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