Outsourcing of services is one of the most important phenomena that are reshaping firms’ boundaries in the last decades. This article assesses the reasons leading manufacturing firms to contract out some service activities instead of providing them internally. The theoretical framework,...

This paper tries to contribute to the renewed literature about price differences across countries (the so-called border effect). Specifically, it analyzes the reasons underlying changes in relative prices across export/domestic markets for an open economy. The theoretical benchmark, based on the...

This paper presents empirical evidence about the relationship between market openness and markup distribution of manufacturing firms. The empirical analysis uses a panel data set of Spanish firms in the period 1990-2005, with a structural approach that lets us to identify individual mark-ups....

This paper tests the pro-competitive effect of imports on product and labour markets for Spanish manufacturing firms in the period 1990-2005. In doing so, it takes into account the type of imported products: final vs intermediate. Markups are estimated following the procedure suggested by Roeger...

The growth in the outsourcing of services has become one of the most relevant features of the changes in manufacturing firms’ behaviour. This paper provides empirical evidence about the extent and evolution of services outsourcing by Spanish manufacturing firms in 1990-1998. A general increase...