TY  - JOUR
AU  - Swenson,Deborah L.
TI  - Overseas Assembly and Country Sourcing Choices
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10697
PY  - 2004
Y2  - August 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10697
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10697.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Deborah L. Swenson
Department of Economics
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616
Tel: 530/752-1569
Fax: 530/752-9382
E-Mail: deswenson@ucdavis.edu
AB  - This paper studies the cross-country pattern of U.S. overseas assembly activities between 1980 and 2000 to examine how outsourcing decisions are affected by changes in country and competitor costs. A number of interesting regularities emerge. When a country's costs rise, the share of U.S. overseas assembly activities in that location decline. Conversely, a country's share of U.S. overseas assembly activities grows when competitor country costs increase. While own and competitor country costs affect overseas assembly in all countries, the magnitude of these effects is larger for developing countries than it is for developed countries. In many cases, the measured responses to cost changes appear to correspond with outsourcing theories that are based on search and customization costs.
ER  -