• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.135-164
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• 2010

This paper compares the earnings effect of inter-industry technology differences between the self-employed and wage earners. It is assumed that primary skills utilized by the self-employed and paid workers differ in nature, and thus the earnings effect of technology differences and its skill-biasness also differ for each type of workers. For the empirical analysis. Heckman's two-stage method and quantile regressions are fitted to Korean panel data. The earnings effect of technology differences turns skill- biased for wage earners (job-specific skills), but prevails for all self-employed workers (entrepreneurial skills) regardless of their schooling level. This sectoral difference holds for each different quantile of earnings distribution.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.119-148
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• 2007

Foreign outsourcing, otherwise known as off-shoring, has become a matter of intense public debate and great concern in both developed countries and developing countries. Yet, there is a lack of good data on foreign outsourcing since the early 1990's. This paper presents updated measures of foreign outsourcing for the recent period. Its main findings are that the share of foreign-sourced goods in total manufactured inputs almost doubled-from 12.4 percent to 22.7 percent between 1987 and 2003. I then look at the relationship between the measure of foreign outsourcing activity and wages in US manufacturing industries in recent years from 1998 to 2003. The results show that for all workers, the outsourcing level is statistically significantly and negatively associated with industry wage premiums. The estimate suggests that a magnitude of 0.9 - a 9% decrease in industry wage premiums tends to accompany a 10% increase in industry outsourcing level. Outsourcing has a bigger effect on the less-skilled workers-industry outsourcing level increases by 10% and industry wage premiums decrease by about 11% in the case of less-skilled workers.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2006

This study investigates the effects of inward foreign direct investment on local workers' wages by focusing on U.S. manufacturing industries for the period from 1987 to 1992. Contrary to public perception that foreign ownership is positively associated with higher wages, previous studies show mixed results. Since most of the previous studies used industry or firm level average wages, they can not control for the impact of individual characteristics on wages. I use two different approaches to control individual characteristics and to implement estimation in this study: (1) One-step estimation with industry-state level of inward foreign direct investments by using individual level data, and (2) Two-step industry characteristic regression approach. The higher presence of foreign firms is associated with higher local wages after workers' observable characteristics are controlled for in the first approach. This effect, however, disappears once workers' industry affiliations and regions are controlled for in cross-section analysis. In a panel data analysis, I did not find any statistically significant positive association between inward FDI activities and industry wage premiums within industry. Further, inward FDI activities appeared to be negatively associated with worker's industry wage premium for workers with more than high school education.