Multinationals, Offshoring, and the Decline of U.S. Manufacturing

Christoph Boehm, Aaron Flaaen and Nitya Pandalai-Nayar

Journal of International Economics, 2020, vol. 127, issue C

Abstract: We provide new facts about the role of multinationals in the decline in U.S. manufacturing employment between 1993 and 2011, using a novel microdata panel with firm-level ownership and trade information. Multinational-owned establishments displayed lower employment growth than a narrow control group and accounted for 41% of the aggregate decline. Newly multinational establishments experienced job losses, while their parent firms increased foreign input imports. We develop a model that rationalizes this behavior and bound a key elasticity with our microdata. The estimates imply that multinational offshoring was responsible for a sizable reduction in U.S. manufacturing employment.

Keywords: Multinational firms; Offshoring; Outsourcing; Manufacturing employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F16 F23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Multinationals, Offshoring and the Decline of U.S. Manufacturing (2019)
Working Paper: Multinationals Offshoring, and the Decline of U.S. Manufacturing (2017)
Working Paper: Multinationals, Offshoring and the Decline of U.S. Manufacturing (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:127:y:2020:i:c:s0022199620301069

DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2020.103391

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