NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Firms' Use of Outside Contractors: Theory and Evidence

Katharine G. Abraham, Susan K. Taylor

NBER Working Paper No. 4468*
Issued in September 1993
NBER Program(s):   LS

A firm's decision to contract out for business support services may be influenced by the wage and benefit savings it could realize, the volatility of its output demand and the availability of specialized skills possessed by the outside contractor. Analysis of newly-available establishment-level data shows that all three of these factors help to explain observed contracting behavior. The reported empirical findings are relevant both for understanding the recent growth in business support service contracting and for understanding firms' relationships with their own employees.

*Published: JLE, Vol. 14, no. 3 (July 1996): 394-424.

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