Outsourcing, unemployment and welfare policy

"The paper investigates the consequences of outsourcing of labor intensive activities to low-wage economies. This trend challenges the two basic functions of the welfare state, redistribution and social insurance when private unemployment insurance markets are missing. The main results are: (i)...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Keuschnigg, Christian, Ribi, Evelyn
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Munich 2008
CESifo
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19180797124919089799-outsourcing,-unemployment-and-.htm
Description
Summary:"The paper investigates the consequences of outsourcing of labor intensive activities to low-wage economies. This trend challenges the two basic functions of the welfare state, redistribution and social insurance when private unemployment insurance markets are missing. The main results are: (i) outsourcing raises unemployment and labor income risk of unskilled workers; (ii) it increases inequality among high- and low-income groups; and (iii) the gains from outsourcing can be made Pareto improving by using a redistributive linear income tax if redistribution is initially not too large. We finally derive the welfare optimal redistribution and unemployment insurance policies."
Physical Description:26 p.
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