A major question in the globalization debate is whether outsourcing and offshoring activities are beneficial to the … suggests that the effect of offshoring manufacturing and services on total factor productivity (TFP) is positive and larger …

inputs off-shoring. Third, in terms of the productivity dynamics over the period 1998-2003, exporters' performance in Italy …, based on a large sample of Italian enterprises. To this purpose, we merged two waves of the Capitalia survey (1998-2000, and … that only export abroad. Second, firms that engage in final goods off-shoring are more productive than firms that engage in …

We examine whether offshoring firms outperform purely domestic firms – in terms of efficiency, innovativeness and skill … composition – in the peculiar context of Italy, the G7 country with the largest shadow-economy share. We posit that manufacturing … propensity-score-matching and difference-in-difference techniques we find that offshoring: (i) impacts negatively TFP; (ii) is …