Outsourcing Economics
Book has a double meaning. First, it is a book about the economics of
outsourcing. Second, it examines the way that economists have understood globalization as
a pure market phenomenon, and as a result have 'outsourced' the explanation of world
economic forces to other disciplines. Markets are embedded in a set of institutions -
labor, government, corporate, civil society, and household - that mold the power
asymmetries that influence the distribution of the gains from globalization. In this book,
William Milberg and Deborah Winkler propose an institutional theory of trade and
development starting with the growth of global value chains - international networks of
production that have restructured the global economy and its governance over the past
twenty-five years.
They find that offshoring leads to greater economic insecurity in industrialized
countries that lack institutions supporting workers. They also find that offshoring allows
firms to reduce domestic investment and focus on finance and short-run stock movements.
Economic development has become synonymous with 'upgrading' in global value chains, but
this is not sufficient for improved wages or labor standards, raising obstacles to
sustained economic development for many emerging economies.
1. Introduction;
2. The new wave of globalization;
3. What role for comparative advantage?;
4. Lead firm strategy and global value chain structure;
5. Economic insecurity in the new wave of globalization;
6. Financialization and the dynamics of offshoring;
7. Economic development as industrial upgrading in global value chains;
8. Outsourcing economics.
370 pages, Paperback