【主題】Technology and Production Fragmentation: Domestic versus Foreign Sourcing
【報告人】Teresa C. Fort，現任美國達特茅斯大學塔克商學院（Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth）助理教授，2012年獲得美國馬裡蘭大學經濟學博士，曾任職于美國人口普查局，主要研究領域是國際貿易和産業組織，研究成果發表于IMF Economic Review 等，同時兼任 Canadian Journal of Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of International Economics等國際著名期刊的匿名審稿人。
【時間】2014年3月12日（星期三）下午3:30-5:00
【論文摘要】This paper provides direct empirical evidence about how technology affects firms' global sourcing decisions. Using new data on U.S. firms' decisions to contract for manufacturing services from domestic or foreign suppliers, I estimate a large differential impact of firm communication technology on the probability of fragmentation across industries. The effect of firm technology is more than two standard deviations higher in industries whose production specifications are easier to codify in
an electronic format, relative to industries in which they are not. The data also show that high technology firms and industries are more likely to source from high human capital countries, and that the differential impact of technology across industries is strongly increasing in country human capital. The systematic variation in the effect of firm technology across industries and countries is an important element in understanding how technology affects global sourcing patterns, the role of firm-level comparative advantage in offshoring, and the ramifications of production fragmentation on different types of firms and workers.
