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OUTSOURCING BEHAVIOUR: THE ROLE
OF SUNK COSTS AND FIRM AND
INDUSTRY CHARACTERISTICS
Autoras: Carmen Díaz Mora
Angela Triguero Cano
University of Castilla-La Mancha
P. T. N.o 10/08
Financial support by The Institute for Fiscal Studies (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance) is gratefully acknowledged.
N.B.: Las opiniones expresadas en este trabajo son de la exclusiva responsabilidad de las autoras, pudiendo no coincidir con las del Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Desde el año 1998, la colección de Papeles de Trabajo del Instituto de Estudios Fiscales está disponible en versión electrónica, en la dirección: >http://www.minhac.es/ief/principal.htm.
Edita: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales N.I.P.O.: 602-08-004-3 I.S.S.N.: 1578-0252 Depósito Legal: M-23772-2001
INDEX
1. INTRODUCTION
2. DATA AND DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS
3. LITERATURE BACKGROUND
4. THE MODEL OF OUTSOURCING DETERMINANTS
5. ECONOMETRIC RESULTS
6. CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES
SÍNTESIS. Principales implicaciones
—3—
ABSTRACT
This paper studies the determinants of outsourcing intensity using firm-level
panel data for Spanish manufacturing industries. Outsourcing refers to contract
out the manufacturing of custom-made finished products or parts and
components. Following the theoretical framework of Grossman and Helpman
(2002), we take into account the presence of sunk entry costs as well as other
firm, industry and market characteristics that influence the level of outsourcing.
Moreover, we consider firstly that the company decides to outsourcing or not,
and once outsourcing has been the chosen option, the firm establishes the
volume of production to be subcontracted. Although the problem of sample
selection is typically ignored in panel data settings, we use the Heckman
procedure to eliminate the effect of selection bias from the estimated results.
Our results show that some variables influencing the outsourcing intensity are
different from those that affect decision of outsourcing.
JEL classification: D21, L23, L60.
Keywords: Outsourcing, Firm-level panel data, Determinants, Selection bias,
Persistence.
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Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
1. INTRODUCTION
In the current economic climate where companies operate more and more
in global markets, one of the priorities for them is to gain efficiency.
Outsourcing has emerged as a necessary strategy to enhance firm
competitiveness and performance. Outsourcing is when a company contracts
with a third party to carry out a function that were previously performed
internally. In the manufacturing area, functions capable of being outsourced
include technology systems, component manufacturing, product assembly,
training and testing.
The term outsourcing refers to external to the boundaries of the company,
that is, it is opposed to vertically integrated production. Furthermore, as
Grossman and Helpman (2005) note “outsourcing means more than just the
purchases of raw materials and standardized intermediate goods” because a
specific characteristic of outsourcing is that the relationship between the firm
which contracts out production (main contractor) and external provider
(subcontractor) is long-term and it usually implies sharing information about the
product. Therefore, closer relationships between main contractor and
subcontractor/supplier are developed1.
Nowadays, many firms are making the decision to outsource. The increasing
competition and complexity of production processes have led to firms to leave
the non-core activities providing them through outsourcing. Moreover, the
progress in trade liberalization, the reducing of transport costs and the IT
revolution have encouraged outsourcing activities. Outsourcing, which may be
of domestic or international dimension, has made itself accessible to many
companies in today’s global marketplace.
This study is an empirical contribution to the literature on factors that
determine both the propensity and the intensity of outsourcing using firm-level
panel data. The importance of the phenomenon is well understood, but much
less is known about firm level determinants to contract out: why do some firms
decide subcontracting and why the subcontracting intensity is higher in some
firms than in others. As far as authors know, the existing empirical studies
neither offer a wide consensus about the determinants nor study in a
simultaneously way what variables determines who contract out and how much
production is outsourced. By one hand, empirical research about the
determinants of outsourcing intensity is done in Tomiura (2005, 2006) for
Japanese manufacturing industry, Görg and Hanley (2004) for Irish electronics
1
Outsourcing and subcontracting are considered to be synonymous.
—7—
industry, Girma and Görg (2004) for some UK manufacturing industries and
Diaz-Mora (2007) for Spanish manufacturing industries2. By other hand, works
such as Kimura (2001), Holl (2007) and Diaz-Mora and Triguero (2007) study
which factors affect the firm’s likelihood to outsource using Japanese data, in the
first case, and Spanish data in the two others.
In this work we consider, firstly, that the company decides to outsourcing or
not and, once outsourcing has been the chosen option, the firm establishes the
volume of production to be subcontracted. Although the problem of sample
selection is typically ignored in panel data settings, we take into account it in this
paper. It requires using the Heckman procedure to eliminate the effect of
selection bias from the estimated results3. So, our work tries to identify which
factors influence the outsourcing intensity using a panel of Spanish manufacturing
firms and considering prior decision. Based on the theoretical approach of
Grossman and Helpman (2002), the presence of sunk entry costs and diverse
firm, industry and market characteristics are contemplated in our model.
The organization of this paper is as follows. Section 1 is an introduction.
Section 2 presents data and a descriptive analysis of subcontracting intensity. A
simple conceptual framework for the analysis using the existing literature is
provided in section 3. Section 4 presents the model and justifies the
econometrical technique used in this work. Section 5 shows the main empirical
findings. Finally, section 6 concludes.
2. DATA AND DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS
Our empirical work is based on establishment level data between 1991 and
2002. Although outsourcing is generally difficult to measure, we have
information on which parts of the production stage have been contracted out.
Specifically, our measure of outsourcing includes the manufacturing of custom­
made finished products or parts and components which have been contracted
out to third parties. It is important to emphasize that the processing of the
segmented production is carried out following the main contractor’s
specifications. That is, purchases of standardized intermediate inputs through a
usual marketing channel are not regarded as outsourcing in our measure.
Outsourcing involves transferring a production stage to an outside supplier,
which means a high degree of two-way information exchange, coordination and
trust between the main contractor and the subcontractor firm. Such a
2
This last work uses industry-level instead of firm-level data. Tomiura (2005) also introduces a selection equation as the first-stage in Heckman’s two­
step estimation procedure. But he uses cross-section data and the persistence in outsourcing behaviour is not taken into account. 3
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Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
relationship between economic entities implicated in outsourcing is qualitatively
different from traditional relationships between buyer and seller. So, our work
uses an adjusted measure of outsourcing.
All the data used for this paper are from the Survey of Business Strategy
(Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales in Spanish, ESEE hereafter). It provides
panel data on many relevant firm characteristics such as activity and manufacturing
processes, customers and suppliers, costs and prices, markets, technological
activities, foreign trade and employment from 1990 onward. The ESEE is a
representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms with 10 or more employees
classified by two firm size categories. The selection is carried out combining
exhaustiveness in the case of firms which have over 200 employees and random
sampling criteria for firms which employ between 10 and 200 workers. The
Survey covered 2,188 firms in 1990. Efforts to avoid the reduction of the firms'
collaboration have been made in order to maintain the representativeness with
regard to the population of reference. As well as efforts to include each year into
the sample all the newly incorporated firms which employ over 200 workers, and
a randomly selected sample which represents around 5% of the newly
incorporated firms which have between 10 and 200 employees4.
In relation to outsourcing, surveyed firms give information, firstly, about if
they outsource production or not and, secondly, about the value of the
contracted out production. We select exclusively those firms that respond the
questions about outsourcing. Afterwards, we focus only on outsourcing firms to
analyse the intensity of subcontracting from a sectoral and time perspective.
Outsourcing intensity is computed as the ratio of production activities
contracted out to other firms to the value of the total intermediate purchases.
Table 1 displays basic descriptive statistics on the outsourcing behaviour of
Spanish manufacturing firms by firm size. Our results reveal that less than half of
Spanish manufacturing firms are engaged in outsourcing strategy. The
percentage of outsourcers has even decreased from the beginning of the
nineties. The average subcontracting intensity is around 20 per cent of
intermediate consumption for those firms that decide to outsource production
in 2002. This average level of outsourcing has remained quite stable over the
last years, hardly two percentage points higher than at the beginning of the 90’s.
With regard to the firm size, our data show a positive correlation between firm
size and the probability to be outsourcer but negative between firm size and
subcontracting intensity. Outsourcers tend to be larger than non-outsourcers.
However, the smaller the firm, the more intensive is the subcontracting
strategy. That is, the influence of firm size on subcontracting behaviour needs to
be taken into account.
4
See Fariñas and Jaumandreu (1999) and www.funep.es for further details about ESEE.
—9—
Table 1 OUTSOURCING BEHAVIOUR BY FIRM-SIZE, 1991-2002 Total number
of firms
Percentage
share of
outsourcing
firms
1991
2002
1991
2002
1991
2002
1.992
1.684
47.5
42.9
17.9
20.4
Small (less than 25 employees) 1.664
1.486
36.4
32.7
21.5
23.1
Medium (between 25 and 200
employees)
1
1.579
1.663
45.8
41.2
21.3
21.1
Large (more than 200
employees)
1
1.749
1.535
58.6
54.4
13.5
18.1
All manufacturing firms
Average
Outsourcing
intensity (in
outsourcing firms)
Source: ESEE.
The cross-industry variability of subcontracting behaviour is very high.
Sectors such as drinks, textiles and clothing, editing and printing, machinery
and other transport material subcontract around 25 per cent of intermediate
inputs at the end of the period, which is a percentage above the industry
average (table 2). Meat products, other food and tobacco and paper are the
industries with lower share of subcontracted production. So, outsourcing
behaviour seems to be clearly affected by industry-specific factors.
Nevertheless, sectors using more intensively outsourcing strategy are not
always coincident with those with higher propensity to outsource. Hence, we
can infer that factors determining subcontracting decision and subcontracting
intensity could differ.
A correlation chart shows that subcontracting propensity and intensity are
not closely related from a sectoral perspective (chart 1). There are branches
such as rubber and plastics, electrical equipment and other manufacturing
industries where subcontracting is a widespread practice among firms
whereas the outsourcing intensity is low. On the contrary side, drink industry
is the second branch with higher subcontracting intensity but hardly 20 per
cent of firms are engaged in subcontracting production during the period
1991-2002.
— 10 — Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
Table 2 OUTSOURCING BEHAVIOUR BY MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY, 1991-2002 Percentage share of
outsourcing firms
Meat products
Other food and tobacco
Drinks
Textiles and clothing
Leather and footware
Wood industry
Paper
Editing and printing
Chemical industry
Rubber and plastics
Minerals products
Iron and steel
Metallic products
Machinery and mechanical goods
Office equipment
Electrical equipment
Motor vehicles
Other transport material
Furniture
Other manufacturing
Outsourcing intensity
(in outsourcing firms)
1991
2002
1991
2002
17.5
26.3
19.6
52.6
50.0
34.0
39.3
60.0
44.8
50.0
28.4
43.6
54.2
76.2
63.2
61.7
58.9
70.0
43.0
60.8
18.2
25.3
19.2
49.4
47.9
29.3
24.6
53.1
48.6
47.1
27.4
33.3
45.2
61.5
42.9
65.5
51.6
61.3
35.7
42.4
14.8
14.1
20.5
21.9
18.3
28.1
20.2
24.8
18.8
14.7
14.4
11.5
17.7
19.7
23.8
12.3
22.7
17.8
20.8
15.8
15.1
18.5
30.9
28.4
20.9
14.4
17.1
35.8
20.7
12.2
15.1
17.4
22.1
24.6
21.5
18.6
13.4
23.7
18.9
10.8
Source: ESEE.
Chart 1 CORRELATION BETWEEN SUBCONTRACTING DECISION AND
SUBCONTRATING INTENSITY BY INDUSTRY (1991-2002) 80
Subcontracting decision
70
Electrical equipment
60
Other manufacturing
50
Rubber & plastics
y = 1,24x + 18,84
40
R2 = 0,24
30
Drinks
20
10
0
0
5
10
15
20
Subcontracting intensity
Source: ESEE.
— 11 — 25
30
35
3. LITERATURE BACKGROUND
Our empirical research on the determinants of outsourcing intensity follows
the theoretical work by Grossman and Helpman (2002). They examine the
firm’s choice between in-house production and outsourcing (make or buy
decision) within a theoretical framework that allows for the interdependence
between firm’s decision and market structure. The form of industrial
organization depends on the trade off between the costs that arise from vertical
disintegration such as search frictions and imperfect contracting and the costs of
running a larger and less specialized organization. Building on the transaction
cost theory (Williamson, 1975, 1985) and property right theory (Grossman and
Hart, 1986), Grossman and Helpman model assumes that outsourcing entails a
variety of transaction costs associated with various aspects of inter-firm
transactions. Search costs to find a suitable supplier, negotiation costs, costs to
design the contract and the incomplete contracts problem, production
coordination costs, technology transfer risks, etc. have to be considered. On the
contrary side, outsourcing increases the flexibility in the production process as
well as it allows to benefit from provider cost advantages derived from
specialization, experience, economies of scale and location. When these benefits
exceed transaction costs from outsourcing, firms will opt for contracting out
production.
With regard to the costs, we believe that some of the transaction costs
related to outsourcing initiative will be irrecoverable for the firm. So,
outsourcing decisions are not only costly but also difficult to reverse5. That is,
they involve a significant sunk cost component, for example the search costs in
finding a reliable provider. Sunk entry costs represent a barrier to a firm
adopting the outsourcing strategy. They are proxied by the lagged dependent
variable which may also capture the previous outsourcing experience of a firm
and the persistence in outsourcing behaviour. Those firms that have outsourced
in the past year and have learnt from their preceding experiences tend to
outsource again in the current year. The existence of sunk entry costs and the
dynamic aspect of outsourcing have been narrowly used in prior empirical
works. Swenson (2004) shows that outsourcing exhibits hysteresis caused by
sunk entry costs using data of the US offshore assembly program. The influence
of previous outsourcing is also considered by Girma and Görg (2004) and DíazMora (2007). In order to asses the importance of sunk costs and previous
experience, we use a lag structure for past outsourcing decision and for
outsourcing level in this work.
Supporting the hypothesis of sunk entry costs in outsourcing, a notable
persistence of participation decision in outsourcing from one year to the next
5
McIvor (2005).
— 12 — Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
can be observed in Spanish manufacturing firms (table 3). According to our data,
82 per cent of firms that outsource production continue to outsource in the
following year, while this ratio is 14 per cent among non-outsourcing firms. That
is, outsourcing firms in the current year are 5.9 times more likely to outsource
in the following year than a currently non-outsourcing firm. The persistence is
even higher for those firms that do not outsource in a particular year: 86 per
cent of them remain inactive in the following year. The pattern of persistence is
also clear at industry-level6. Therefore, our findings corroborate the importance
of sunk entry costs in outsourcing strategy.
Table 3 OUTSOURCING TRANSITION PROBABILITIES
Out t+1
No-Out t+1
Out t
81.65
18.35
No-Out t
13.73
86.27
One of these sunk entry costs are just the search costs in finding a reliable
provider. Grossman and Helpman (2002) model search as a matching process
which is costly and is not always successful. So the expected profits for
outsourcing depend positively on the probability of finding a suitable partner. In
this point, they consider the influence of industry environment on outsourcing
dynamics in two ways. By one hand, the attractiveness of outsourcing depends
on whether other firms in the same industry have chosen to be vertically
integrated or to outsource. The expected profits of a main contractor firm
decline with the entry of other firms like it, “because additional firms on the
same side of the market reduce the likelihood of matching”7. Moreover,
potential outsourcers “find more attractive to outsource the thicker the market
for the input is, in the sense that there exist more sellers to serve the buyers’
needs”8. By this way, Grossman and Helpman explore the possibility of
interactions between firms’ organization decisions. For this reason, two industry
variables are included in the model: the amount of main contractor firms in the
industry (same-side market thickness) and the amount of specialized providers
in the industry (other-side market thickness).
By other hand, outsourcing is more likely to exist in large industries due to
the benefits of having a thicker market. That is, the larger the industry, the
greater the number of main contractors and providers that enters the industry.
6
7
8
For the outsourcing transition probabilities by industry, see Díaz-Mora and Triguero (2007). Grossman and Helpman (2002), page 96. Helpman (2006), pages 615-616. — 13 — But industry size favours outsourcing only with increasing returns to scale in
matching, i.e. when the chances for a firm of finding a good match grow as the
number of firms on each side of the market rises. Size does not matter when
there are constant returns to matching. In that case, there could be no influence
of industry size on outsourcing. The industry size is measured by the number of
firms in each industry. McLaren (2000) also considers the effects of market
thickness on the outsourcing of intermediate inputs in a transaction cost model
where the trade off between vertical integration and outsourcing is considered.
He argues that an increase in the thickness market can lead to outsourcing. As
international trade increases the thickness of the market, outsourcing will be
more viable in firms operating in markets and economies open to international
trade (McLaren, 2000). It could be argued that the significance of international
openness will be greater in firms where foreign outsourcing prevails. The ESEE
does not provide information on whether production is outsourced to firms
abroad or in the domestic economy. But recent studies for Spanish economy
using input-output data show that international dimension of fragmentation of
production is becoming more and more important, particularly in sectors with
higher export propensity (Gandoy and Díaz-Mora, 2007). Taking into account
the increasing relevance of international outsourcing, we try to estimate the role
of exports on outsourcing behaviour. A dummy variable is included in the
model. It takes the value 1 if the firm shows positive export behaviour and 0
otherwise. Empirical works such as Kimura (2001) and Görg and Hanley (2004)
introduce an export variable and they obtain a significant and positive effect on
outsourcing.
Besides that, we consider the influence of industry environment on
outsourcing in an additional mode: specific industry characteristics could ease
the disintegration of production process, and consequently favour outsourcing.
That is, belonging to a specific industry may condition the firm’s outsourcing
strategy. The introduction of industry dummies allows us to control the
permanent differences across industries.
On the benefit side, efficiency considerations mix with flexibility
considerations. The primary motivation for outsourcing emerging from opinion
surveys is to cut costs. Outsourcing can help to improve the efficiency of the
production process when the main contractor can take advantage of lower
wages in subcontractor firm. So, wages are considered as a key determinant of
outsourcing strategy. We expect that those firms where the wages are higher
will be more dynamic in outsourcing strategy. In the review literature, the sign
of this labour variable varies depending on the manufacturing industry and on
the estimation technique (Girma and Görg, 2004; Görg and Hanley, 2004). Only
Holl (2007) and Diaz-Mora (2007) do obtain a positive and significant coefficient
using Spanish manufacturing data.
— 14 — Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
The labour-cost saving argument is not the only factor to take into account in
outsourcing strategy. Cost cutting derived from specialized knowledge and
exploitation of scale and scope9 economies in the production of intermediate
inputs and components also helps to improve firm efficiency. The existence of
economies of scale and scope emphasizes the role of firm size variable as a
determinant of outsourcing. Taking into account that small and medium
enterprises have more difficulties to get the minimum efficient scale, our
hypothesis is that they will opt more intensively for outsourcing. Larger firms
are in better position to integrate their production processes while smaller can
find outsourcing like a useful alternative to get scale and scope economies. But
there are controversial arguments to expect a negative relation between firm
size and outsourcing intensity. Since outsourcing increases firm’s capacity for
adaptation and flexibility, large firms are more likely to carry out the vertically
de-integration of their production structures. In this sense, Görzig and Stephan
(2002) point out that regarding the relationship between firm size and
performance, there should be a trade-off between economies of scale on the
one hand and increasing inefficiency on the other. Furthermore, larger firms
must have better access to specific inputs and information which can facilitate the
decision or the continuation of subcontracting arrangements. Thus, the sign of
firm size becomes an empirical matter. A positive effect on outsourcing decision
is found in Holl (2004) and a negative effect on outsourcing level in Görg and
Hanley (2004) where firms with thirty or less employees are excluded.
Reasons for outsourcing not merely include getting lower costs due to
economies of scale and scope or lower labour rates. Subcontracting implies
more flexibility by turning fixed costs into variable costs. The flexibility­
enhancing motivation for outsourcing is even more necessary in a changing
market environment. Therefore, changes in demand and other market
conditions need to be considered (Demsetz, 1995; Abraham and Taylor, 1996;
Shy and Stenbacka, 2003; Lin and Tsai, 2005 and Buehler and Haucap, 2006).
For this motive, we include a variable measuring these changes in the market
conditions. Specifically, we incorporate a dummy variable coded 1 if the
surveyed firm shows changes in market conditions and 0 if does not.
Furthermore, outsourcing as a strategy to face a very dynamic market
environment is even more necessary for firms in industries where innovation
and rapid responsiveness to customer needs are key sources of comparative
advantage (McIvor, 2005). Lin and Tsai (2005) also indicate that a changing
market environment favours outsourcing activities, mainly in products
9
Jones and Kierzkowski (2001) argue that disintegration of vertical production processes can
result in production blocks being sufficiently simple which are used in very different activity.
An example is the computer chips which currently are incorporated into computers, but also
in cameras, cars, micro-vans and so on.
— 15 — characterized by a higher technological content10. Outsourcing is understood as
a way of flexible mode of production which allows high-tech firms to focus on
R&D, design and other skill intensive stages of production while the most of
their physical production is contracting out. Subcontracting is becoming very
important for firms producing sophisticated and high tech goods (Curzon Price,
2001). To take into account this argument, we introduce dummy variables
which take the value 1 if the firm does process innovation, product innovation
and R&D activities, expecting a positive relation between these firm’s
characteristics and the propensity to contract out production. We also
introduce the proportion of R&D expenditures over total sales to explain the
outsourcing intensity. Tomiura (2005, 2006) finds a positive coefficient for R&D
intensity and he explains that outsourcing creates greater incentives for
innovation by lowering production costs and raising profits.
Although the main drivers of outsourcing are reduced costs and increased
flexibility, recent theoretical literature such as Shy and Stenbacka (2003),
Buehler and Haucap (2006) and Leahy and Montagne (2007) introduces
additional strategic considerations in determining the make or buy decision.
Specifically, it is argued that firms may choose outsourcing strategically to
influence the behaviour of competitors. In this sense, outsourcing is used as a
strategic instrument to compete with their rivals in the industry where firms
operate. On this basis, competitive pressure will work in favour on strategic
outsourcing. So, the increasing competition in global markets encourages
outsourcing. To consider strategic outsourcing, a proxy for the degree of
market competition is incorporated. It is a dummy variable which takes the
value 1 if the firm has competitors with a significant quota in the own market
and 0 otherwise.
Other firm characteristics are introduced as control variables in the model
such as firm age and foreign ownership. With regard to firm age, we argue that
subcontracting requires experience because mature firms could find appropriate
partners easier than younger companies due to a “learning effect” (Ono, 2003).
Moreover, the first ones could be more prone to focus on their core activities.
Age variable is measured as the years the firm is operating. It is calculated as the
difference between the year the firm was born up and the current year11.
The effect of foreign capital participation on outsourcing behaviour is also
estimated. Previous works suggest a positive relation between international
10
Demsetz (1995) also mentions the role of technological factor. Outsourcing will be more
significant in high-tech products (due to technological change) as well as in sectors such as
wearing apparel (due to changing fashion).
11
The year the company was created (firm age) is one of the questions which are only asked
every four years in the survey. For this reason, we suppose that the age is the most recent
answer given by the same firm.
— 16 — Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
outsourcing and foreign ownership. Kimura (2001) and Girma and Görg (2004)
found that foreign ownership has a positive and significant effect on outsourcing.
They argue that firms that belong to a multinational group have a higher
probability of contracting out to more efficient providers abroad. Nevertheless,
for the Spanish case, Holl (2007) and Díaz-Mora (2007) obtained the opposite
results. A possible explanation could be that, taking into account lower variable
managerial costs such as monitoring and coordination production, a better
option for multinational firms is sourcing production from an affiliate firm
located abroad (intra-firm sourcing or captive offshoring) instead of an
independent foreign supplier (offshore outsourcing)12. So, foreign affiliates could
be less active in outsourcing strategy. Hence, our expectation regarding the sign
of the relationship between foreign ownership and subcontracting pattern is
ambiguous. To control for nationality (foreign or domestic), we include the
dummy variable Foreign Ownership which takes on value 1 if the firm has
foreign ownership participation (at least 50%) and 0 otherwise.
At last, we control for other market conditions such as the concentration of
purchases in a few providers at the level firm.
4. THE MODEL OF OUTSOURCING DETERMINANTS
After revising the theoretical and empirical literature, we select a wide range
of firm, industry and market characteristics to estimate their influence on
outsourcing behaviour. Table 4 summarizes these variables.
Table 4 DEPENDENT AND EXPLANATORY VARIABLES: DEFINITION, MEASURE AND EXPECTED SIGNS
Explanatory
Variables
Definition and measure
Expected
sign
DOUTt-1
Dummy variable taking value 1 if firm subcontracts
in year t-1 and 0 otherwise
+
OUTCOit-1
Outsourcing intensity in year t-1
+
Same-side Market Ratio of main contractor firms to total firms in the
industry
Thickness
-
Ratio of specialized providers to total firms in the
Other-side
Market Thickness industry
+
(Follows)
12
World Trade Organization (2005).
— 17 —
(Continuation)
Explanatory
Variables
Definition and measure
Expected
sign
Industry-size
Log of the number of firms in the industry
+
Export status
Dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the firm
exported in t-1 and 0 otherwise
+
Wage it-1
Log of the wage per employee in year t-1
+
Firm-Size
Log of the number of employees
Market-changes
Dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the firm
has suffered changes in market conditions and 0
otherwise
+
Process­
innovation
Dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the firm
does process innovation and 0 otherwise
+
Product­
innovation
Dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the firm
does product innovation and 0 otherwise
+
R&D status
Dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the firm
does invest in R&D and 0 otherwise
+
R& D intensity
R&D expenditure normalized by sales (in %)
+
Marketcompetition
Dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the firm
has competitors with a significant market quota and
0 otherwise
+
Firm Age
Log of the number of years since the firm was born
+
Foreign-own
Dummy variable taking value one if more than 50%
Undetermined
of the firm shares are foreign and zero otherwise
Providers'
Concentration
Total intermediate purchases of the firm to the
main three providers (in %)
Dj
Industry dummies for 20 sectors of two-digit NACE
Dt
Time dummies
Undetermined
Undetermined
Table 5 reports the means of the explanatory variables for firms that
subcontract and firms that do no subcontract along the period. Considerable
differences between the two types of firms can be observed. Firms engaged in
outsourcing on average pay higher wages, they are larger and more mature and
they belong to larger industries than integrated firms. These companies have
also less providers’ concentration ratios. Moreover, the percentage of firms that
— 18 — Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
face to changes in market conditions, do product and process innovation, invest
in R&D activities, are exporting firms, have competitors with a significant market
quota and have foreign capital participation is greater for firms active in
outsourcing.
Table 5 FIRM, INDUSTRY AND MARKET CHARACTERISTICS
DEPENDING OUTSOURCING BEHAVIOUR
Firms that Firms that do
outsource not outsource
Export status (% of exporting firms)
72.24%
51.53%
Wages
24,591
22,284
357
208
Market changes (% of firms that face to them)
33.84%
29.59%
Process innovations (% of firms that do them)
42.33%
30.23%
Product innovations (% of firms that do them)
36.29%
20.30%
R&D status (% of firms that do R&D)
47.40%
29.13%
R&D intensity
1.09%
0.45%
Market competition (% of firms with competitors with
a relevant market quota)
82.94%
77.52%
25
22
Foreign ownership (% of firms with foreign capital
participation)
27.36%
19.89%
Providers´ Concentration (% of total purchases to the
main three providers)
43.14%
51.02%
Firm size (number of employees)
Firm age (number of years)
We propose the next model which relates the outsourcing intensity with
each of the firm, industry and market characteristics detailed above. These
characteristics try to capture the main motives for firms to engage in production
outsourcing in the selection equation (1) and settle on the amount contracted
out in the objective equation (2):
Outsourcing decision:
DOUTit = F (β1DOUTi,t-1 +β2Same-side Market Thicknessjt +β3Other-side Market
Thicknessjt +β4Industry-sizej,t +β5Exporti,t +β6Wagei,t-1 + β7Firm-Sizei,t + β8Market-changesi,t
— 19 — +β9Process-innovationi,t +β10Product-innovationi,t +β11R&Di,t +β12Market-competitioni,t
+ β13Ageit +β14Foreign-owni,t +β15Providers-coni,t +β16Dt +β17Dj +ui1t)
(1)
Intensity outsourcing:
OUTCOit = F (β1OUTCOi,t-1 + β2Same-side Market Thicknessjt +β3Other-side Market
Thicknessjt +β4Industry-sizej,t +β5Exporti,t +β6Wagei,t-1 + β7Firm-Sizei,t + β8Market-changesi,t
+β9Product-innovationi,t +β10R&Dintensityi,t +β11Market-competitioni,t+ β12Ageit
+β13Foreign-owni,t + β14Providers-coni,t + +β15Dt +β16Dj + ui2t)
(2)
Where i represents the firm and t is the year from 1991 to 2002. In the
selection equation (1), DOUT is a dummy variable which takes the value 1 or 0
depending on whether the firm decides to contracted out production in period t
or not. If DOUTit = 1 , then OUTCO is the outsourcing intensity measured as the
value of production which have been outsourced to the value of the total
intermediate purchases. When the error terms of equations (1) and (2) are
correlated (Correlation (ui1t ,ui2t ) = ρ ), that is ρ is not 0, simple OLS estimation of
outsourcing intensity could result in biased coefficients. With respect to the
econometric modelling of subcontracting behaviour, we use a Heckman (1979)
approach, which recognises that firms that contract out are not a random sub­
set of all firms; rather, modelling outsourcing intensity needs to take account
that those firms with non-zero outsourcing intensity levels have certain
characteristics that are linked to how much is subcontracted. To correct for
selection bias, we thus used the Heckman Full Information Maximum Likelihood
(FIML) estimation procedure from STATA. This procedure yields unbiased
estimates of coefficients.
The decision equation includes two variables that are not included in the
objective equation, as an econometric device for identifying the selection equation.
These variables are two dummies related with the technological level: process
innovation and R&D activities. These variables are insignificant when we regress
intensity outsourcing separately. Instead of them, we introduce R&D expenditure
over sales after proving its lack of significance in the selection equation.
Furthermore, we include previous outsourcing decision in the selection
equation and preceding outsourcing intensity in the objective equation as a
proxy for the existence of sunk costs. The introduction of industry dummies
allows us the possibility of controlling for differences across industries. Also, we
introduce year dummies to capture macroeconomic and temporal changes.
Like mentioned above, we need to account this self-selection element to avoid
selection bias when modelling subcontracting intensity. In a first step, the company
decides to outsourcing or not and, once outsourcing has been chosen, the firm
establishes the volume of production to be subcontracted. Consequently, inclusion
in the second sample when we model intensity is not random. If the variables that
determine whether a firm does outsourcing are unrelated to those that determine
— 20 — Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
the amount of production contracted out, then the two stage approach to selecting
cases does not likely introduce selection bias. However, the possibility of sample
selection bias arises whenever a sub-sample is examined and the unobservable
factors determining inclusion in the sub-sample are correlated with the
unobservable variables influencing the variable of primary interest (Vella, 1998).
Maximum likelihood estimators have to be employed to obtain efficient and
consistent coefficients and both equations are estimated simultaneously using the
Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) estimator. We use the Heckman
sample selectivity approach based on a FIML simultaneous estimation of the model
involving both who contracts out and how much is contract out. This means that
the outsourcing decision and intensity are not separated into two stages. But since
heteroscedasticity is a potential problem when the Heckman technique is applied
to pooled data (Beck and Katz, 1995), we prefer to control this selection bias
using the Huber/White standard error estimator13. The results from the Heckman
selection model with robust estimators are comparable to which obtained from
two-step procedure with separate probit and regression analyses14.
5. ECONOMETRIC RESULTS
Table 6 reports the econometric results of our estimations. We begin by
discussing the results of the selection bias in the outsourcing behaviour model.
The statistically significant Mills ratio coefficient confirms the existence of
selection bias in the specified models. In all the cases, we reject the null
hypothesis at the 1 percent level of confidence that there is no sample selection
problem. That is, the positive coefficient of the Mills ratio implies that a positive
correlation exists between the decision to contract out –and therefore to
engage in the outsourcing strategy– and the outsourcing intensity. All the
regressions include industry dummies in order to control for industry-specific
characteristics but we omit them because of space considerations.
13
By specifying robust, one may forgot model-based variance estimates in favour of the more
model-agnostic “robust” variances. Robust variances give accurate assessments of the
sample-to-sample variability of the parameter estimates even when the model is misspecified.
The robust variance comes under various names and within Stata is known as the
Huber/White/sandwich estimate of variance. The names Huber and White refer to the
seminal references for this estimator (Huber, 1967; White, 1980).
14
The model was also specified using a two-stage Heckman technique to correct for
sampling effects. In this procedure, the selection equation (1) is firstly estimated through
maximum likelihood estimation and the predicted probabilities from this estimation are saved
and transformed into the reciprocal of the Mills ratio (IMR), known as the non-selection
hazard rate or lambda. Secondly, the hazard rate is included as independent variable in the
objective equation (2) summarizing the selectivity effect.
— 21 — The first two columns of table 6 (Specification 1) correspond to the
regression estimates of our model using all the variables, except other-side
market thickness due its high correlation with same-side market thickness. As
expected, the coefficient for lagged outsourcing intensity is positive and highly
significant. The probability of engaged in outsourcing this period also depends
on previous subcontracting behaviour. Both results are related to sunk costs
that firms have to face when they decide to subcontract production. So,
outsourcing behaviour shows a high persistence.
Furthermore, we find good evidence that only a few variables that determine
whether a firm does outsourcing are similar to those that determine the amount
of subcontracted production. These variables are wages, product innovation and
same-side market thickness. For the first two variables, the sign obtained is in
line with previous expectations. Firms with higher wages and product-innovative
firms are more likely to engage in subcontracting and also to show higher
outsourcing intensity. As explained above, outsourcing may reduce the total
wage bill when production in contracted out to lower wages providers. This
result corroborates that cost-cutting is a key reason for outsourcing.
Contrary to expected, same-side market thickness influences positively on
outsourcing decision and level. That is, the more the proportion of main
contractors in an industry, the higher the likelihood of outsourcing and the
subcontracting intensity. A possible explanation is that this variable also controls
for strategic motives for outsourcing. Benefits of outsourcing such as
improvements in efficiency and competitiveness will induce an increase in
competitive pressure that, following Leahy and Montagna (2007), leads to a
greater demand for outsourcing. Furthermore, firms can begin to outsource to
achieve benefits from outsourcing obtained by competitors. Therefore,
outsourcing would be a response to competitor actions (McIvor, 2005). From
this perspective, an increase in the amount of outsourcing firms makes
outsourcing more attractive (and necessary) from non-outsourcing firms.
However, the variable used to measure an increasing competition environment,
market competition variable, is not significant.
The remaining explanatory variables included in both equations exhibit
significant coefficients for only one equation. Foreign ownership exclusively
affects intensity outsourcing, showing a negative sign. Firms with foreign
participation tend to outsource less once they are engaged in outsourcing.
Consistent with prior Spanish evidence, foreign ownership does not favour the
decision about engaging in outsourcing since the coefficient in selection equation
is not significant.
By other hand, variables such as market changes, providers’ concentration
and export influence outsourcing decision. The significance of these effects,
however, appears to be unimportant to set the amount of subcontracted
— 22 — Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
production. Exporter firms and those firms faced to changes in market’s
conditions use outsourcing more frequently. The positive and significant effect
of firm export status on outsourcing strategy allows us to think that a fraction of
outsourcing goes beyond national borders adopting an international dimension.
In addition, frequent changes in market’s condition induce to higher outsourcing
propensity15. On the contrary side, the coefficient on provider concentration is
negative. Therefore, the probability of a good match and, consequently, the
probability of outsourcing increases as the number of providers grows.
With regard to technological variables, we find that process innovation and
R&D activities affect positively the likelihood of being engaged in outsourcing.
But, once a firm has decided to outsource, an increase in R&D intensity does
not have any significant impact on the amount of subcontracted production.
To check robustness of these results, we estimate additional specifications.
First of all, in the specification 2, the variable export status is replaced by the
variable export intensity (firm’s exports over sales) in the objective equation.
The decision of outsource returns to be positively related to exporter status but
the export intensity is not significant to explain the outsourcing intensity. The
sign and significance of the rest of the variables are similar to Specification 1,
pointing to the consistency of estimates.
Secondly, taking into account the insignificance of firm size variable measured
by the log of number of employees, a dummy variable is used to control for the
size of the firm (specification 3). This variable (Dfirm-size) takes the value 1 if
the firm has more than 200 employees and 0 otherwise. It shows a significant
coefficient but only in objective equation and the sign is negative. That is, to be a
big firm seems to influence negatively on outsourcing intensity but it does not
determine the subcontracting decision. So, smaller firms show a higher level of
subcontracting trying to exploit scale and scope economies of specialized
providers. Other variables remain unchanged.
Due to the way of defining the variables size industry and the share of
contractors, there is a likely relationship between them. For that, the variable size
industry is removed from initial model and same-side market thickness is measured
by the log of the number of main contractors in each industry (Specification 4). The
results are basically the same as those in Specification 1, indicating that the results
are robust. The more firms that outsource, the greater is the probability to
outsource. The positive and significant coefficient supports the strategic use of
outsourcing. With this variable, the effect of same-side market thickness on
15
If changes in market’s conditions were an excellent indicator for market uncertainty, this
result would disagree with Álvarez and Stenbacka (2007) who, using a theoretical model,
defend that market uncertainty stimulates the outsourcing intensity but, contrary to common
perception, postpones the adoption of outsourcing strategy. That, according to them,
uncertainty would influence outsourcing level but not outsourcing decision.
— 23 — outsourcing intensity is not significant. Additionally, in Specification 5 we introduce
the ratio of specialized providers to total firms in a sector (other-side market
thickness). According to prior expectations, this variable is positive and significant in
both equations. Matching process is easier, and therefore outsourcing is more
extensive and intensive, the thicker is the other side of the market.
Finally, we run regressions using alternative measures to the size industry
taking into account its lack of significance. Specifically, we employ the number of
employees in each industry (Size-industry2) in the Specification 6. Industry size
variable turns out statistically significant in both equations. As the industry-size
increases, so do the likelihood and the intensity of outsourcing. The positive and
significant sign of industry-size seems to confirm the existence of increasing
scale returns in matching process and so large industries favour outsourcing
strategy. And once more, the remainder regressors do not change.
Table 6
THE DETERMINANTS OF OUTSOURCING INTENSITY- A HECKMAN MODEL
Specification 1
Specification 2
Specification 3
Objective Selection Objective Selection Objective Selection
equation equation equation equation equation equation
DOUTt-1
1.836***
(0.027)
1.839***
(0.027)
1.836***
(0.027)
OUTCOit-1
0.682***
(0.015)
Same-side
Market Thickness (1)
0.114** 0.027*** 0.115** 0.027*** 0.113** 0.027***
(0.055) (0.003) (0.055) (0.003) (0.055) (0.003)
Industry-Size (1)
0.212
(2.241)
Export
0.346 0.175***
(0.557) (0.031)
0.682***
(0.015)
0.011
(0.127)
Export intensity
0.242
(2.243)
0.682***
(0.015)
0.009
(0.127)
0.303
(2.240)
0.006
(0.126)
0.171*** 0.370 0.168***
(0.030) (0.556) (0.031)
0.009
(0.010)
Wage it-1
1.863** 0.142*** 1.790** 0.141*** 1.837** 0.134***
(0.730) (0.039) (0.724) (0.039) (0.714) (0.038)
Firm-Size
-0.316
(0.206)
-0.011
(0.012)
Dfirm-Size
Market-changes
-0.326
(0.206)
-0.011
(0.012)
-1.197* 0.002
(0.675) (0.043)
0.084 0.071*** 0.084 0.073*** 0.070 0.069***
(0.430) (0.026) (0.430) (0.026) (0.430) (0.026)
(Follows)
— 24 —
Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
(Continuation)
Specification 1
Specification 2
Specification 3
Objective Selection Objective Selection Objective Selection
equation equation equation equation equation equation
Process-innovation
Product-innovation
0.079***
(0.027)
0.080***
(0.027)
0.077***
(0.026)
0.864* 0.172*** 0.839* 0.173*** 0.836* 0.171***
(0.444) (0.030) (0.445) (0.030) (0.443) (0.030)
R&D
0.060*
(0.031)
0.059*
(0.031)
0.051*
(0.031)
R& D intensity
0.069
(0.085)
Market-competition
-0.738
(0.592)
0.045
(0.032)
-0.716
(0.591)
0.043
(0.032)
-0.734
(0.593)
0.044
(0.032)
Firm Age
0.113
(0.239)
-0.001
(0.014)
0.130
(0.238)
0.000
(0.014)
0.109
(0.240)
-0.003
(0.014)
Foreign-own
-1.284** -0.034 -1.280** -0.032 -1.312** -0.043
(0.537) (0.033) (0.539) (0.033) (0.535) (0.033)
Providers' Concentration
0.011 -0.003*** 0.011 -0.003*** 0.011 -0.003***
(0.011) (0.001) (0.011) (0.001) (0.011) (0.001)
0.067
(0.085)
Selection test –IMR (athrho) 0.508***
(0.031)
0.062
(0.085)
0.506***
(0.031)
0.508***
(0.031)
Observations
16450
Censored obs.
9239
9239
9239
Uncensored obs.
7211
7199
7211
Wald chi2
3662.26
3653.26
3672.97
Prob>chi2
0.00
0.00
0.00
254.39
257.37
254.18
0.00
0.00
0.00
Specification 4
Specification 5
Specification 6
Wald test of independent
equs. (rho=0)
Prob>chi2
16450
16438
16438
16450
16450
Objective Selection Objective Selection Objective Selection
equation equation equation equation equation equation
DOUTt-1
OUTCOit-1
1.837***
(0.027)
0.682***
(0.015)
1.839***
(0.027)
0.682***
(0.015)
1.834***
(0.027)
0.682***
(0.015)
(Follows)
— 25 —
(Continuation)
Specification 4
Specification 5
Specification 6
Objective Selection Objective Selection Objective Selection
equation equation equation equation equation equation
Same-side Market
Thickness (2)
2.194 0.561*** 2.908 0.593***
(1.745) (0.093) (1.782) (0.095)
Other-side Market
Thickness
0.133*** 0.006**
(0.047) (0.003)
Industry-Size (2)
3.439*** 0.223***
(0.730) (0.048)
Export
0.348 0.177*** 0.328 0.177*** 0.359 0.177***
(0.557) (0.031) (0.557) (0.031) (0.557) (0.031)
Wage it-1
1.876** 0.147*** 1.867** 0.147*** 1.876** 0.146***
(0.729) (0.039) (0.728) (0.039) (0.729) (0.039)
Firm-Size
-0.328
(0.206)
Market-changes
0.082 0.071*** 0.076 0.070*** 0.082 0.070***
(0.429) (0.026) (0.430) (0.026) (0.430) (0.026)
Process-innovation
Product-innovation
-0.014
(0.012)
-0.327
(0.206)
0.077***
(0.026)
-0.014
(0.012)
-0.319
(0.205)
0.077***
(0.026)
-0.012
(0.012)
0.080***
(0.026)
0.871** 0.173*** 0.870** 0.173*** 0.873** 0.170***
(0.444) (0.030) (0.444) (0.030) (0.444) (0.030)
R&D
0.063**
(0.031)
0.062**
(0.031)
0.064**
(0.031)
R& D intensity
0.070
(0.085)
Market-competition
-0.732
(0.592)
0.046
(0.032)
-0.740
(0.592)
0.045
(0.032)
-0.733
(0.592)
0.045
(0.032)
Firm Age
0.117
(0.239)
-0.000
(0.014)
0.126
(0.238)
-0.000
(0.014)
0.110
(0.239)
-0.002
(0.014)
Foreign-own
-1.285** -0.034 -1.288** -0.034 -1.295** -0.036
(0.537) (0.033) (0.536) (0.033) (0.536) (0.033)
Providers' Concentration
0.011 -0.003*** 0.012 -0.003*** 0.011 -0.003***
(0.011) (0.001) (0.011) (0.001) (0.011) (0.001)
0.065
(0.085)
Selection test –IMR (athrho) 0.506***
(0.031)
Observations
16450
0.071
(0.085)
0.504***
(0.031)
16450
16450
0.510***
(0.031)
16450
16450
16450
(Follows)
— 26 —
Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
(Continuation)
Specification 4
Specification 5
Specification 6
Objective Selection Objective Selection Objective Selection
equation equation equation equation equation equation
Censored obs.
9239
9239
9239
Uncensored obs.
7211
7211
7211
Wald chi2
3658.46
3686.36
3659.70
Prob>chi2
0.00
0.00
0.00
253.59
250.61
254.90
0.00
0.00
0.00
Wald test of independent
equs. (rho=0)
Prob>chi2
Notes: Significant coefficients are indicated by *, **, ***, for significance at the 10%, 5% and
1% level, respectively. Robust standard errors in parentheses. All regressions include
unreported sectoral dummies and annual time dummies. All variables, except the dummy and
the variables expressed in %, are in logarithm.
6. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have used firm-level manufacturing data from 1991 to 2002
to estimate a model of the determinants of outsourcing intensity taking into
account that before firms decide to contract out or not. In particular, we are
interested on knowing if firms decide to contract out and the volume of
subcontracting because of similar reasons. For doing that, the Heckman
procedure is designed to eliminate the effect of selection bias from the
estimated results. In fact, we determined that the coefficient on the Inverse
Mills term was statistically significant, implying the existence of selection bias in
the outsourcing performance. As a result, we have employed the estimates
from the Heckman FIML procedure rather than the ordinary least squares
results in our analysis. If decisions on subcontracting are correlated with the
error terms in the intensity equations, the OLS estimates of the model
parameters would be biased and inconsistent.
Previous descriptive analysis shows those firms that are active in outsourcing
contract out around 20 per cent of intermediate inputs. The outsourcing
intensity is even higher in industries such as textiles and clothing, editing and
printing, drinks, machinery and other transport equipment. That is, particular
industry characteristics seem to be important to explain a more intensive use of
outsourcing. Moreover, given that there is not a strong correlation between
outsourcing propensity and intensity by sectors, we argue that factors
determine decision and level of outsourcing can differ.
— 27 — Econometric results confirm this expectation. Only a few variables
influencing the outsourcing intensity coincide with those that affect decision of
outsourcing. First of all, previous outsourcing behaviour shows a positive and
very significant coefficient. So, outsourcing behaviour exhibits a high degree of
persistence. This outcome confirms the importance of sunk costs and previous
experience in outsourcing strategy. Furthermore, other variables such as wages,
product innovation, size industry and variables related to thickness of the
market (the amount of main contractors and specialized providers) favour
outsourcing behaviour. Innovation firms and firms with higher wages use
outsourcing more extensive and intensively. This outcome provides empirical
evidence, by one hand, to the cost-cutting motive for outsourcing and by other
hand, to the flexibility-enhance reason for outsourcing in very dynamic markets.
At last, the more firms that outsource, the greater is the probability to
outsource, implying the existence of strategic outsourcing.
Besides that, other variables such as foreign ownership and firm size affect
exclusively the outsourcing intensity. The sign of both variables are negative.
Large firms and firms with foreign participation show lower outsourcing
intensity. Whereas variables like market changes, R&D and export merely
influence outsourcing decision and do it in a positive way, corroborating a higher
propensity to outsourcing in complex and very competitive environments.
To check robustness, different specifications of the model have been
estimated and the results have been very similar. The robustness of the results
favours the validity of theoretical arguments about factors that influence
outsourcing strategy.
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— 31 — SÍNTESIS
IMPLICACIONES DE POLÍTICA ECONÓMICA El objeto de este trabajo es el estudio de los determinantes del outsourcing
utilizando datos de empresas manufactureras españolas de la Encuesta sobre
Estrategias Empresariales. El outsourcing es una estrategia empresarial que consiste en
segmentar la cadena de valor de un producto con objeto de dejar de producir partes
específicas de la misma para encargarlas a otras empresas; no obstante, es algo más
que la mera compra de materias primas y componentes estandarizados en el
mercado, puesto que una característica específica de la estrategia es la relación a largo
plazo que se establece entre las empresas y la transmisión fluida de información
detallada del producto. Una creciente competencia, con mercados sujetos a continuos
cambios y complejos procesos productivos está empujando a las empresas a evaluar
cuales son las fases en la que residen sus ventajas competitivas (core-competences) y a
subcontratar el resto en un claro intento de mejorar su eficiencia. Es más, los avances
en la liberalización comercial, las marcadas reducciones en los costes de transporte y
las revolución tecnológica en el campo de la información y la comunicación ha
favorecido notablemente un uso más extensivo e intensivo del outsourcing al tiempo
que ha impulsado su dimensión internacional.
Aunque la importancia del fenómeno es bien conocida, los análisis empíricos sobre
sus determinantes son aún escasos y los resultados insuficientemente concluyentes. A
la luz de los modelos teóricos, el trabajo contrasta la influencia de ciertas
características empresariales y sectoriales sobre el outsourcing a la vez que tiene en
cuenta el carácter hundido de algunos de los costes a los que se enfrentan las
empresas al adoptar esta estrategia. En este campo es el primer trabajo empírico que
ofrece un análisis conjunto de la decisión y de la intensidad del outsourcing. Así, se
divide el comportamiento “externalizador” en dos niveles: en primer lugar, la empresa
decide si subcontrata o no producción y, una vez que se ha decantado por el
outsourcing, establece qué volumen producción va a subcontratar. Teniendo en cuenta
que nuestra investigación pone de manifiesto que aproximadamente la mitad de
nuestras empresas manufactureras no están optando por el outsourcing de producción,
el estudio del comportamiento de la variable intensidad del outsourcing habrá de tener
en cuenta estos casos en el análisis econométrico para no obtener resultados
erróneos. Por ello en este trabajo para corregir el sesgo de selección muestral se
estiman los parámetros determinantes de la decisión de subcontratar y de la
intensidad de dicha subcontratación de forma simultánea utilizando el método FIML
(full information maximum likelihood), más eficiente que la estimación bietápica del
método de Heckman tradicional.
Nuestros datos muestran como, a comienzos del siglo XXI, las empresas
manufacturas españolas activas en la estrategia del outsourcing están subcontratando
en torno al 20% del valor de sus consumos intermedios, siendo esa intensidad del
— 33 — outsourcing sensiblemente superior en las empresas de menor dimensión y
especialmente en sectores como bebidas, textil y confección, edición y artes gráficas,
maquinaria y otro material de transporte. Este resultado avala la hipótesis de que
existen determinadas características sectoriales, además de empresariales, que
favorecen la estrategia de desintegración vertical de la empresa de manera que algunas
industrias en particular gozan de una mayor predisposición al outsourcing. Por otro
lado, la ausencia de una correlación fuerte entre la propensión a subcontratar y la
intensidad de la subcontratación por sectores permite intuir que los determinantes de
una y otra variable pueden no coincidir.
Los resultados del análisis econométrico así lo confirman y únicamente unas pocas
variables determinan conjuntamente la decisión y la intensidad del outsourcing. Es el
caso del comportamiento previo de la empresa en relación al outsourcing que muestra
un coeficiente positivo y altamente significativo en ambas ecuaciones, evidenciando, en
primer lugar, que una parte de los costes de transacción son irrecuperables, lo que
constituye una barrera de entrada y de salida al outsourcing y, en segundo lugar, que la
experiencia previa juega un papel importante en el comportamiento “externalizador”
de la empresa. Otras variables como el nivel salarial y la innovación de producto
también favorecen un uso extensivo e intensivo del outsourcing. Las empresas más
activas en externalizar producción son, por un lado, las empresas con mayores salarios
lo que permite otorgar soporte empírico a la hipótesis del outsourcing como estrategia
que persigue un ahorro en costes laborales y, por otro, las empresas más innovadoras
lo que avala la idea de estrategia como vía para incrementar la flexibilidad en un marco
de mercados muy dinámicos. Por último, cuanto más extendido está el uso del
outsourcing en un sector, mayor es la probabilidad de que una empresa del sector
acometa dicha estrategia y lo haga con mayor intensidad, confirmándose así el carácter
estratégico del outsourcing.
Destacan otras variables con influencia únicamente sobre la decisión de
subcontratar producción, como es el caso de ser empresas exportadoras, realizar
actividades en I+D y enfrentarse a frecuentes cambios en el mercado corroborando la
mayor predisposición al outsourcing de empresas que operan en entornos más
complejos y competitivos. Por el contrario variables como el tamaño de la empresa y
la participación accionarial extranjera parecen afectar negativamente a la cantidad de
producción subcontratada.
— 34 — NORMAS DE PUBLICACIÓN DE PAPELES DE TRABAJO DEL
INSTITUTO DE ESTUDIOS FISCALES
Esta colección de Papeles de Trabajo tiene como objetivo ofrecer un vehículo de
expresión a todas aquellas personas interasadas en los temas de Economía Pública. Las
normas para la presentación y selección de originales son las siguientes:
1. Todos los originales que se presenten estarán sometidos a evaluación y podrán
ser directamente aceptados para su publicación, aceptados sujetos a revisión, o
rechazados.
2. Los trabajos deberán enviarse por duplicado a la Subdirección de Estudios
Tributarios. Instituto de Estudios Fiscales. Avda. Cardenal Herrera Oria, 378. 28035
Madrid.
3. La extensión máxima de texto escrito, incluidos apéndices y referencias
bibliográfícas será de 7000 palabras.
4. Los originales deberán presentarse mecanografiados a doble espacio. En la primera
página deberá aparecer el título del trabajo, el nombre del autor(es) y la institución a la
que pertenece, así como su dirección postal y electrónica. Además, en la primera
página aparecerá también un abstract de no más de 125 palabras, los códigos JEL y las
palabras clave.
5. Los epígrafes irán numerados secuencialmente siguiendo la numeración arábiga.
Las notas al texto irán numeradas correlativamente y aparecerán al pie de la
correspondiente página. Las fórmulas matemáticas se numerarán secuencialmente
ajustadas al margen derecho de las mismas. La bibliografía aparecerá al final del
trabajo, bajo la inscripción “Referencias” por orden alfabético de autores y, en cada
una, ajustándose al siguiente orden: autor(es), año de publicación (distinguiendo a, b, c
si hay varias correspondientes al mismo autor(es) y año), título del artículo o libro,
título de la revista en cursiva, número de la revista y páginas.
6. En caso de que aparezcan tablas y gráficos, éstos podrán incorporarse
directamente al texto o, alternativamente, presentarse todos juntos y debidamente
numerados al final del trabajo, antes de la bibliografía.
7. En cualquier caso, se deberá adjuntar un disquete con el trabajo en formato word.
Siempre que el documento presente tablas y/o gráficos, éstos deberán aparecer en
ficheros independientes. Asimismo, en caso de que los gráficos procedan de tablas
creadas en excel, estas deberán incorporarse en el disquete debidamente identificadas.
Junto al original del Papel de Trabajo se entregará también un resumen
de un máximo de dos folios que contenga las principales implicaciones de
política económica que se deriven de la investigación realizada.
— 35 — PUBLISHING GUIDELINES OF WORKING PAPERS AT THE
INSTITUTE FOR FISCAL STUDIES
This serie of Papeles de Trabajo (working papers) aims to provide those having an
interest in Public Economics with a vehicle to publicize their ideas. The rules gover­
ning submission and selection of papers are the following:
1. The manuscripts submitted will all be assessed and may be directly accepted for
publication, accepted with subjections for revision or rejected.
2. The papers shall be sent in duplicate to Subdirección General de Estudios
Tributarios (The Deputy Direction of Tax Studies), Instituto de Estudios Fiscales
(Institute for Fiscal Studies), Avenida del Cardenal Herrera Oria, nº 378, Madrid
28035.
3. The maximum length of the text including appendices and bibliography will be no
more than 7000 words.
4. The originals should be double spaced. The first page of the manuscript should
contain the following information: (1) the title; (2) the name and the institutional affi­
liation of the author(s); (3) an abstract of no more than 125 words; (4) JEL codes and
keywords; (5) the postal and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
5. Sections will be numbered in sequence with arabic numerals. Footnotes will be
numbered correlatively and will appear at the foot of the corresponding page.
Mathematical formulae will be numbered on the right margin of the page in sequence.
Bibliographical references will appear at the end of the paper under the heading
“References” in alphabetical order of authors. Each reference will have to include in this
order the following terms of references: author(s), publishing date (with an a, b or c in
case there are several references to the same author(s) and year), title of the article or
book, name of the journal in italics, number of the issue and pages.
6. If tables and graphs are necessary, they may be included directly in the text or
alternatively presented altogether and duly numbered at the end of the paper, before
the bibliography.
7. In any case, a floppy disk will be enclosed in Word format. Whenever the
document provides tables and/or graphs, they must be contained in separate files.
Furthermore, if graphs are drawn from tables within the Excell package, these must
be included in the floppy disk and duly identified.
Together with the original copy of the working paper a brief two-page
summary highlighting the main policy implications derived from the
research is also requested.
— 36 — ÚLTIMOS PAPELES DE TRABAJO EDITADOS POR EL INSTITUTO DE ESTUDIOS FISCALES 2004
01/04 Una propuesta para la regulación de precios en el sector del agua: el caso español. Autores: M.a Ángeles García Valiñas y Manuel Antonio Muñiz Pérez. 02/04 Eficiencia en educación secundaria e inputs no controlables: sensibilidad de los
resultados ante modelos alternativos.
Autores: José Manuel Cordero Ferrera, Francisco Pedraja Chaparro y Javier Salinas Jiménez.
03/04 Los efectos de la política fiscal sobre el ahorro privado: evidencia para la OCDE.
Autores: Montserrat Ferre Carracedo, Agustín García García y Julián Ramajo Hernández.
04/04 ¿Qué ha sucedido con la estabilidad del empleo en España? Un análisis desagregado
con datos de la EPA: 1987-2003.
Autores: José María Arranz y Carlos García-Serrano.
05/04 La seguridad del empleo en España: evidencia con datos de la EPA (1987-2003).
Autores: José María Arranz y Carlos García-Serrano.
06/04 La ley de Wagner: un análisis sintético.
Autor: Manuel Jaén García.
07/04 La vivienda y la reforma fiscal de 1998: un ejercicio de simulación.
Autor: Miguel Ángel López García.
08/04 Modelo dual de IRPF y equidad: un nuevo enfoque teórico y su aplicación al caso español.
Autor: Fidel Picos Sánchez.
09/04 Public expenditure dynamics in Spain: a simplified model of its determinants.
Autores: Manuel Jaén García y Luis Palma Martos.
10/04 Simulación sobre los hogares españoles de la reforma del IRPF de 2003. Efectos sobre
la oferta laboral, recaudación, distribución y bienestar.
Autores: Juan Manuel Castañer Carrasco, Desiderio Romero Jordán y José Félix Sanz Sanz.
11/04 Financiación de las Haciendas regionales españolas y experiencia comparada.
Autor: David Cantarero Prieto.
12/04 Multidimensional indices of housing deprivation with application to Spain.
Autores: Luis Ayala y Carolina Navarro.
13/04 Multiple ocurrence of welfare recipiency: determinants and policy implications.
Autores: Luis Ayala y Magdalena Rodríguez.
14/04 Imposición efectiva sobre las rentas laborales en la reforma del impuesto sobre la renta
personal (IRPF) de 2003 en España.
Autoras: María Pazos Morán y Teresa Pérez Barrasa.
15/04 Factores determinantes de la distribución personal de la renta: un estudio empírico a
partir del PHOGUE.
Autores: Marta Pascual y José María Sarabia.
16/04 Política familiar, imposición efectiva e incentivos al trabajo en la reforma de la
imposición sobre la renta personal (IRPF) de 2003 en España.
Autoras: María Pazos Morán y Teresa Pérez Barrasa.
17/04 Efectos del déficit público: evidencia empírica mediante un modelo de panel dinámico
para los países de la Unión Europea.
Autor: César Pérez López.
— 37 — 18/04 Inequality, poverty and mobility: Choosing income or consumption as welfare
indicators.
Autores: Carlos Gradín, Olga Cantó y Coral del Río.
19/04 Tendencias internacionales en la financiación del gasto sanitario.
Autora: Rosa María Urbanos Garrido.
20/04 El ejercicio de la capacidad normativa de las CCAA en los tributos cedidos: una
primera evaluación a través de los tipos impositivos efectivos en el IRPF.
Autores: José María Durán y Alejandro Esteller.
21/04 Explaining. budgetary indiscipline: evidence from spanish municipalities.
Autores: Ignacio Lago-Peñas y Santiago Lago-Peñas.
22/04 Local governmets' asymmetric reactions to grants: looking for the reasons.
Autor: Santiago Lago-Peñas.
23/04 Un pacto de estabilidad para el control del endeudamiento autonómico.
Autor: Roberto Fernández Llera
24/04 Una medida de la calidad del producto de la atención primaria aplicable a los análisis
DEA de eficiencia.
Autora: Mariola Pinillos García.
25/04 Distribución de la renta, crecimiento y política fiscal.
Autor: Miguel Ángel Galindo Martín.
26/04 Políticas de inspección óptimas y cumplimiento fiscal.
Autores: Inés Macho Stadler y David Pérez Castrillo.
27/04 ¿Por qué ahorra la gente en planes de pensiones individuales?
Autores: Félix Domínguez Barrero y Julio López-Laborda.
28/04 L a reforma del Impuesto sobre Actividades Económicas: una valoración con
microdatos de la ciudad de Zaragoza.
Autores: Julio López-Laborda, M.ª Carmen Trueba Cortés y Anabel Zárate Marco.
29/04 Is an inequality-neutral flat tax reform really neutral?
Autores: Juan Prieto-Rodríguez, Juan Gabriel Rodríguez y Rafael Salas.
30/04 El equilibrio presupuestario: las restricciones sobre el déficit.
Autora: Belén Fernández Castro.
2005
01/05 Efectividad de la política de cooperación en innovación: evidencia empírica española.
Autores:Joost Heijs, Liliana Herrera, Mikel Buesa, Javier Sáiz Briones y Patricia Valadez.
02/05 A probabilistic nonparametric estimator.
Autores: Juan Gabriel Rodríguez y Rafael Salas.
03/05 Efectos redistributivos del sistema de pensiones de la seguridad social y factores
determinantes de la elección de la edad de jubilación. Un análisis por comunidades
autónomas.
Autores: Alfonso Utrilla de la Hoz y Yolanda Ubago Martínez.
14/05 La relación entre los niveles de precios y los niveles de renta y productividad en los países
de la zona euro: implicaciones de la convergencia real sobre los diferenciales de inflación.
Autora: Ana R. Martínez Cañete.
05/05 La Reforma de la Regulación en el contexto autonómico. Autor: Jaime Vallés Giménez. — 38 — 06/05 Desigualdad y bienestar en la distribución intraterritorial de la renta, 1973-2000.
Autores: Luis Ayala Cañón, Antonio Jurado Málaga y Francisco Pedraja Chaparro.
07/05 Precios inmobiliarios, renta y tipos de interés en España.
Autor: Miguel Ángel López García.
08/05 Un análisis con microdatos de la normativa de control del endeudamiento local.
Autores: Jaime Vallés Giménez, Pedro Pascual Arzoz y Fermín Cabasés Hita.
09/05 Macroeconomics effects of an indirect taxation reform under imperfect competition.
Autor: Ramón J. Torregrosa.
10/05 Análisis de incidencia del gasto público en educación superior: nuevas aproximaciones.
Autora: María Gil Izquierdo.
11/05 Feminización de la pobreza: un análisis dinámico.
Autora: María Martínez Izquierdo.
12/05 Efectos del impuesto sobre las ventas minoristas de determinados hidrocarburos en la
economía extremeña: un análisis mediante modelos de equilibrio general aplicado.
Autores: Francisco Javier de Miguel Vélez, Manuel Alejandro Cardenete Flores y Jesús
Pérez Mayo.
13/05 La tarifa lineal de Pareto en el contexto de la reforma del IRPF.
Autores: Luis José Imedio Olmedo, Encarnación Macarena Parrado Gallardo y María
Dolores Sarrión Gavilán.
14/05 Modelling tax decentralisation and regional growth.
Autores: Ramiro Gil-Serrate y Julio López-Laborda.
15/05 Interactions inequality-polarization: characterization results.
Autores: Juan Prieto-Rodríguez, Juan Gabriel Rodríguez y Rafael Salas.
16/05 Políticas de competencia impositiva y crecimiento: el caso irlandés.
Autores: Santiago Díaz de Sarralde, Carlos Garcimartín y Luis Rivas.
17/05 Optimal provision of public inputs in a second-best scenario.
Autores: Diego Martínez López y A. Jesús Sánchez Fuentes.
18/05 Nuevas estimaciones del pleno empleo de las regiones españolas.
Autores: Javier Capó Parrilla y Francisco Gómez García.
19/05 US deficit sustainability revisited: a multiple structural change approach.
Autores: Óscar Bajo-Rubio. Carmen Díaz-Roldán y Vicente Esteve.
20/05 Aproximación a los pesos de calidad de vida de los “Años de Vida Ajustados por
Calidad” mediante el estado de salud autopercibido.
Autores: Anna García-Altés, Jaime Pinilla y Salvador Peiró.
21/05 Redistribución y progresividad en el Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones: una
aplicación al caso de Aragón.
Autor: Miguel Ángel Barberán Lahuerta.
22/05 Estimación de los rendimientos y la depreciación del capital humano para las regiones
del sur de España.
Autora: Inés P. Murillo.
23/05 El doble dividendo de la imposición ambiental. Una puesta al día.
Autor: Miguel Enrique Rodríguez Méndez.
24/05 Testing for long-run purchasing power parity in the post bretton woods era: evidence
from old and new tests.
Autor: Julián Ramajo Hernández y Montserrat Ferré Cariacedo.
— 39 — 25/05 Análisis de los factores determinantes de las desigualdades internacionales en las
emisiones de CO2 per cápita aplicando el enfoque distributivo: una metodología de
descomposición por factores de Kaya.
Autores: Juan Antonio Duro Moreno y Emilio Padilla Rosa.
26/05 Planificación fiscal con el impuesto dual sobre la renta.
Autores: Félix Domínguez Barrero y Julio López Laborda.
27/05 El coste recaudatorio de las reducciones por aportaciones a planes de pensiones y las
deducciones por inversión en vivienda en el IRPF 2002.
Autores: Carmen Marcos García, Alfredo Moreno Sáez, Teresa Pérez Barrasa y César
Pérez López.
28/05 La muestra de declarantes IEF-AEAT 2002 y la simulación de reformas fiscales:
descripción y aplicación práctica.
Autores: Alfredo Moreno, Fidel Picos, Santiago Díaz de Sarralde, María Antiqueira y
Lucía Torrejón.
2006
01/06 Capital gains taxation and progressivity.
Autor: Julio López Laborda.
02/06 Pigou’s dividend versus Ramsey’s dividend in the double dividend literature.
Autores: Eduardo L. Giménez y Miguel Rodríguez.
03/06 Assessing tax reforms. Critical comments and proposal: the level and distance effects.
Autores: Santiago Díaz de Sarralde Míguez y Jesús Ruiz-Huerta Carbonell.
04/06 Incidencia y tipos efectivos del impuesto sobre el patrimonio e impuesto sobre
sucesiones y donaciones.
Autora: Laura de Pablos Escobar.
05/06 Descentralización fiscal y crecimiento económico en las regiones españolas. Autores: Patricio Pérez González y David Cantarero Prieto. 16/06 Efectos de la corrupción sobre la productividad: un estudio empírico para los países
de la OCDE.
Autores: Javier Salinas Jiménez y M.ª del Mar Salinas Jiménez.
07/06 Simulación de las implicaciones del equilibrio presupuestario sobre la política de
inversión de las comunidades autónomas.
Autores: Jaime Vallés Giménez y Anabel Zárate Marco.
18/06 The composition of public spending and the nationalization of party sistems in western
Europe.
Autores: Ignacio Lago-Peñas y Santiago Lago.Peñas.
09/06 Factores explicativos de la actividad reguladora de las Comunidades Autónomas
(1989-2001).
Autores: Julio López Laborda y Jaime Vallés Giménez.
10/06 Disciplina credititicia de las Comunidades Autónomas.
Autor: Roberto Fernández Llera.
11/06 Are the tax mix and the fiscal pressure converging in the European Union?.
Autor: Francisco J. Delgado Rivero.
12/06 Redistribución, inequidad vertical y horizontal en el impuesto sobre la renta de las
personas físicas (1982-1998).
Autora: Irene Perrote.
— 40 — 13/06 Análisis económico del rendimiento en la prueba de conocimientos y destrezas
imprescindibles de la Comunidad de Madrid.
Autores: David Trillo del Pozo, Marta Pérez Garrido y José Marcos Crespo.
14/06 Análisis de los procesos privatizadores de empresas públicas en el ámbito internacional.
Motivaciones: moda política versus necesidad económica.
Autores: Almudena Guarnido Rueda, Manuel Jaén García e Ignacio Amate Fortes.
15/06 Privatización y liberalización del sector telefónico español.
Autores: Almudena Guarnido Rueda, Manuel Jaén García e Ignacio Amate Fortes.
16/06 Un análisis taxonómico de las políticas para PYME en Europa: objetivos, instrumentos
y empresas beneficiarias.
Autor: Antonio Fonfría Mesa.
17/06 Modelo de red de cooperación en los parques tecnológicos: un estudio comparado.
Autora: Beatriz González Vázquez.
18/06 Explorando la demanda de carburantes de los hogares españoles: un análisis de
sensibilidad.
Autores: Santiago Álvarez García, Marta Jorge García-Inés y Desiderio Romero Jordán.
19/06 Cross-country income mobility comparisons under panel attrition: the relevance of
weighting schemes.
Autores: Luis Ayala, Carolina Navarro y Mercedes Sastre.
20/06 Financiación Autonómica: algunos escenarios de reforma de los espacios fiscales.
Autores: Ana Herrero Alcalde, Santiago Díaz de Sarralde, Javier Loscos Fernández,
María Antiqueira y José Manuel Tránchez.
21/06 Child nutrition and multiple equilibria in the human capital transition function.
Autores: Berta Rivera, Luis Currais y Paolo Rungo.
22/06 Actitudes de los españoles hacia la hacienda pública.
Autor: José Luis Sáez Lozano.
23/06 Progresividad y redistribución a través del IRPF español: un análisis de bienestar social
para el periodo 1982-1998.
Autores: Jorge Onrubia Fernández, María del Carmen Rodado Ruiz, Santiago Díaz de
Sarralde y César Pérez López.
24/06 Análisis descriptivo del gasto sanitario español: evolución, desglose, comparativa
internacional y relación con la renta.
Autor: Manuel García Goñi.
25/06 El tratamiento de las fuentes de renta en el IRPF y su influencia en la desigualdad y la
redistribución.
Autores: Luis Ayala Cañón, Jorge Onrubia Fernández y María del Carmen Rodado Ruiz.
26/06 La reforma del IRPF de 2007: una evaluación de sus efectos.
Autores: Santiago Díaz de Sarralde Míguez, Fidel Picos Sánchez, Alfredo Moreno Sáez,
Lucía Torrejón Sanz y María Antiqueira Pérez.
27/06 Proyección del cuadro macroeconómico y de las cuentas de los sectores
institucionales mediante un modelo de equilibrio.
Autores: Ana María Abad, Ángel Cuevas y Enrique M. Quilis.
28/06 Análisis de la propuesta del tesoro Británico “Fiscal Stabilisation and EMU” y de sus
implicaciones para la política económica en la Unión Europea.
Autor: Juan E. Castañeda Fernández.
— 41 — 29/06 Choosing to be different (or not): personal income taxes at the subnational level in
Canada and Spain.
Autores: Violeta Ruiz Almendral y François Vaillancourt.
30/06 A projection model of the contributory pension expenditure of the Spanish social
security system: 2004-2050.
Autores: Joan Gil, Miguel Ángel Lopez-García, Jorge Onrubia, Concepció Patxot y
Guadalupe Souto.
2007
11/07 Efectos macroeconómicos de las políticas fiscales en la UE. Autores: Oriol Roca Sagalés y Alfredo M. Pereira. 02/07 Deficit sustainability and inflation in EMU: an analysis from the fiscal theory of the
price level.
Autores: Óscar Bajo-Rubio, Carmen Díaz-Roldán y Vicente Esteve.
03/07 Contraste empírico del modelo monetario de tipos de cambio: cointegración y ajuste
no lineal.
Autor: Julián Ramajo Hernández.
04/07 An empirical analysis of capital taxation: equity vs. tax compiance. Autores: José M.a Durán Cabré y Alejandro Esteller Moré. 05/07 Education and health in the OECD: a macroeconomic approach. Autoras: Cecilia Albert y María A. Davia. 06/07 Understanding the effect of education on health across European countries. Autoras: Cecilia Albert y María A. Davia. 07/07 Polarization, fractionalization and conflict. Autores: Joan Esteban y Debraj Ray. 08/07 Immigration in a segmented labor market: the effects on welfare. Autor: Javier Vázquez Grenno. 09/07 On the role of public debt in an OLG Model with endogenous labor supply. Autor: Miguel Ángel López García. 10/07 Assessing profitability in rice cultivation using the Policy Matrix Analysis and profit­
efficient data.
Autores: Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, Ernest Reig y Vicent Estruch.
11/07 Equidad y redistribución en el Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones: análisis de los
efectos de las reformas autonómicas.
Autores: Miguel Ángel Barberán Lahuerta y Marta Melguizo Garde.
12/07 Valoración y determinantes del stock de capital salud en la Comunidad Canaria y Cataluña.
Autores: Juan Oliva y Néboa Zozaya.
13/07 La nivelación en el marco de la financiación de las Comunidades Autónomas.
Autores: Ana Herrero Alcalde y Jorge Martínez-Vázquez.
14/07 El gasto en defensa en los países desarrollados: evolución y factores explicativos.
Autor: Antonio Fonfría Mesa.
15/07 Los costes del servicio de abastecimiento de agua. Un análisis necesario para la
regulación de precios.
Autores: Ramón Barberán Ortí, Alicia Costa Toda y Alfonso Alegre Val.
16/07 Precios, impuestos y compras transfronterizas de carburantes.
Autores: Andrés Leal Marcos, Julio López Laborda y Fernando Rodrigo Sauco.
— 42 — 17/07 Análisis de la distribución de las emisiones de CO2 a nivel internacional mediante la
adaptación del concepto y las medidas de polarización.
Autores: Juan Antonio Duro Moreno y Emilio Padilla Rosa.
18/07 Foreign direct investment and regional growth: an analysis of the Spanish case.
Autores: Óscar Bajo Rubio, Carmen Díaz Mora y Carmen Díaz Roldán.
19/07 Convergence of fiscal pressure in the EU: a time series approach.
Autores: Francisco J. Delgado y María José Presno.
20/07 Impuestos y protección medioambiental: preferencias y factores.
Autores: María de los Ángeles García Valiñas y Benno Torgler.
21/07 Modelización paramétrica de la distribución personal de la renta en España. Una
aproximación a partir de la distribución Beta generalizada de segunda especie.
Autores: Mercedes Prieto Alaiz y Carmelo García Pérez.
22/07 Desigualdad y delincuencia: una aplicación para España.
Autores:Rafael Muñoz de Bustillo, Fernando Martín Mayoral y Pablo de Pedraza.
23/07 Crecimiento económico, productividad y actividad normativa: el caso de las Comunidades
Autónomas.
Autor: Jaime Vallés Giménez.
24/07 Descentralización fiscal y tributación ambiental. El caso del agua en España.
Autores: Anabel Zárate Marco, Jaime Vallés Giménez y Carmen Trueba Cortés.
25/07 Tributación ambiental en un contexto federal. Una aplicación empírica para los
residuos industriales en España.
Autores: Anabel Zárate Marco, Jaime Vallés Giménez y Carmen Trueba Cortés.
26/07 Permisos de maternidad, paternidad y parentales en Europa: algunos elementos para
el análisis de la situación actual.
Autoras: Carmen Castro García y María Pazos Morán.
27/07 ¿Quién soporta las cotizaciones sociales empresariales?. Una panorámica de la literatura
empírica.
Autor: Ángel Melguizo Esteso.
28/07 Una propuesta de financiación municipal.
Autores: Manuel Esteban Cabrera y José Sánchez Maldonado.
29/07 Do R&D programs of different government levels overlap in the European Union.
Autoras: Isabel Busom y Andrea Fernández-Ribas.
30/07 Proyecciones de tablas de mortalidad dinámicas de España y sus Comunidades
Autónomas.
Autores: Javier Alonso Meseguer y Simón Sosvilla Rivero.
2008
11/08 Estudio descriptivo del voto económico en España. Autores: José Luis Sáez Lozano y Antonio M. Jaime Castillo. 12/08 The determinants of tax morale in comparative perspective: evidence from a multilevel
analysis.
Autores: Ignacio Lago-Peñas y Santiago Lago-Peñas.
13/08 Fiscal decentralization and the quality of government: evidence from panel data. Autores: Andreas P. Kyriacou y Oriol Roca-Sagalés. 14/08 The effects of multinationals on host economies: A CGE approach. Autores: María C. Latorre, Oscar Bajo-Rubio y Antonio G. Gómez-Plana.
— 43 — 15/08 Measuring the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics. Autores: José María Arranz y Olga Cantó. 16/08 Aspectos distributivos de las diferencias salariales por razón de género en España: un
análisis por subgrupos poblacionales.
Autores: Carlos Gradín y Coral del Río.
17/08 Evaluating the regulator: winners and losers in the regulation of Spanish electricity
distribution (1988-2002).
Autores: Leticia Blázquez Gómez y Emili Grifell-Tatjé.
18/08 Interacción de la política monetaria y la política fiscal en la UEM: tipos de interés a
corto plazo y déficit público.
Autores: Jesús Manuel García Iglesias y Agustín García García.
19/08 A selection model of R&D intensity and market structure in Spanish forms.
Autor: Joaquín Artés.
10/08 Outsourcing behaviour: the role of sunk costs and firm and industry characteristics.
Autoras: Carmen Díaz Mora y Angela Triguero Cano.
— 44 —