Overseas Investment and Labor Market Outcomes Using BEA Micro Data

外包对美国劳动力市场结果的影响已成为一个重要的全国性问题。基于美国跨国公司在制造业的运作的证据表明，资本流动性的增加可能与负面的劳动力市场结果有关。从1977年到1999年，跨国制造公司在美国裁减了近200万个工作岗位。初步结果显示，劳动收入占比大幅下降，实际工资水平保持不变。巧合的是，美国就业岗位的减少几乎完全被海外就业岗位的增加所抵消。即使在海外，随着工作岗位数量的增加，实际工资和劳动力占收入的比例也有所下降（发达国家子公司下降14%，发展中国家子公司下降21%）。这些劳动力市场的结果伴随着美国跨国公司海外业务的重大转变。从1977年到1999年，海外分公司的雇佣率从15%上升到26%。因此，即使资本密集型技术有所增加，认为劳动力市场结果的一些下行压力可能与资本流动性的增加有关也不是不合理的。这项研究衡量了美国投资资本流动性增加对美国和海外劳动力市场结果的影响。该研究没有关注不平等问题，而是考察了外包活动增加对工资、劳动力在增加值中所占份额和就业的影响。尽管有很多轶事证据表明，美国公司正在利用搬迁的威胁来压低美国的工资，但很少有学术研究关注这个问题。我们的理论框架导致了一组估计方程，其中我们将劳动报酬的决定因素视为几个变量的函数。这些变量包括劳动力和资本相对议价优势的决定因素，如劳动力的替代回报、资本的替代回报、工厂搬迁到国外的固定成本，以及在同一部门搬迁的其他工厂的数量（“威胁”效应）。这项研究将使用华盛顿特区经济分析局（BEA）收集的保密的、以前未开发的微观数据来测试这一模型。

The effect of outsourcing on labor market outcomes in the US has become an important national concern. Evidence based on the operations of U.S. multinationals in the manufacturing sector suggests that increased capital mobility may be associated with negative labor market outcomes. Over the period 1977 to 1999 multinational manufacturing firms have shed close to 2 million jobs in the United States. Preliminary results show that labor's share of income has fallen dramatically and real wages have remained flat. Coincidentally, the loss of jobs in the U.S. has been almost entirely offset by an increase in jobs overseas. Even overseas, as the number of jobs has increased, real wages and labor's share of income have declined (by 14 percent in developed country affiliates and by 21 percent in developing country affiliates). These labor market outcomes have been accompanied by a substantial shift in the operations of US multinationals abroad. Between 1977 and 1999, the share of employment accounted for by overseas affiliates increased from 15 to 26 percent. Thus, even with an increase in capital-intensive technologies, it is not unreasonable to think that some of the downward pressure on labor market outcomes might be associated with the increased mobility of capital.This research measures the impact of increased mobility of US investment capital on labor market outcomes in the US and abroad. Instead of focusing on inequality, the research examines how wages, labor's share in value-added, and employment are affected by increases in outsourcing activity. Although there is a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that US firms are using the threat of relocation to keep wages down in the US, there has been very little academic research focusing on this issue. Our theoretical framework leads to a set of estimating equations where we look at the determinants of labor compensation as a function of several variables. These variables include determinants of the relative bargaining strengths of labor and capital such as labor's alternative return, capital's alternative return, the fixed costs to plants of relocating abroad, and the number of other plants relocating in the same sector (the "threat" effect). The research will use confidential, previously unexploited, micro data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in Washington, D.C. to test this model.