Growth in Services Outsourcing to India; Propellant or Drain on the U.S. Economy. Office of Economics Working Paper

摘要

In recent years, one focus of globalization - the transfer of certain manufacturing processes overseas - has expanded to include the offshore outsourcing of many business process services. The offshore outsourcing of business process services to other countries has generated much debate in the United States and presents broad implications for American consumers and equity share holders, corporations, and the U.S. workforce.1 Critics of offshore outsourcing contend that it will destroy the American middle class and seriously undermine Americas economic future. Opponents of business process outsourcing (BPO) fear that millions of U.S. workers will become jobless from competition in the services sector and accuse U.S. corporations of exporting high paying white-collar service jobs overseas at the expense of the American worker. Others fear that outsourcing will exert downward pressure on U.S. wages and that the income distribution gap will broaden as more middle-class jobs go offshore. On the other hand, proponents of outsourcing and globalization believe that it will benefit the U.S. economy by lowering the prices of certain services, increasing profit margins, expanding exports, raising dividends to shareholders, providing greater job security and higher wages for remaining workers, and generally resulting in economic efficiency. Advocates contend that the benefits to the U.S. economy derived from offshore outsourcing will more than offset any pain and suffering caused by the dislocation of U.S. workers. Likewise, proponents predict that the economic activity associated with offshore outsourcing will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the U.S. economy and that U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) and U.S. exports will be billions of dollars higher than in the absence of the offshoring.