This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly. The paper examines whether measurement differences are one reason for the mismatch between empirical and theoretical findings. In fact, considering the properties of various outsourcing indices and applying a panel data estimation of the effects on the within industries' wage gap in Germany, theory and empirics can be reconciled: while the wage gap increases in the aggregate, the service sector and the high skill intensive industries, it decreases in the low skill intensive industries -which is in line with theoretical findings by Arndt (1997Arndt ( , 1998.

Provided in Cooperation with:Fächergruppe Volkswirtschaftslehre, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität (HSU) Mancur Olson's theory of the decline of nations is path-breaking in political economics. It has been tested cross-sectionally in numerous empirical studies. We survey the existing results briefly, with a special focus on studies using the number of lobbies as an exogenous variable. Using data from the period 1973-2006, we then present the field's first time-series analysis of the effects of the number of interest groups on the German lobby list and macroeconomic performance, gauged in terms of economic growth and inflation. The number of interest groups (as a proxy for their influence) is shown to have an important impact on macrovariables: Interest group activity significantly leads to a decline in the growth rate and a rise in the inflation rate.JEL-Klassifikation/ JEL-Classification: D61, D72, D78

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Can we really trust offshoring indices? Terms of use: Documents in DAVIDE CASTELLANI LUCA DE BENEDICTIS DANIEL HORGOS Zusammenfassung/ AbstractThis paper argues that indices of (business) service and material offshoring built on sectoral input-output data may actually measure something different than what we think they should.Applying shift-share analysis we decompose the variation over time of a commonly used class of such indices into two components: one related to the intensity in the import of intermediate inputs, and the other associated with the use of such inputs in the production of manufacturing goods. Using data from input-output tables of 21 European countries from 1995 to 2006, we show that in the case of service offshoring, in most countries a larger part of the variance is driven by the raising share of (domestically produced) services used in manufacturing production, while the share of imported services contributes to a much smaller extent. When we focus on the subset of business services, evidence shows a relatively larger tendency towards relying on imported rather domestically produced inputs. Instead, in the case of material offshoring there is evidence that foreign suppliers have substituted domestic ones. However, this pattern is strongest in countries, such as Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia, where incoming multinationals, rather than domestic firms offshoring production may be the driving force.JEL-Klassifikation / JEL-Classification: F14, F10

No abstract

This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly. The paper examines whether measurement differences are one reason for the mismatch between empirical and theoretical findings. In fact, considering the properties of various outsourcing indices and applying a panel data estimation of the effects on the within industries' wage gap in Germany, theory and empirics can be reconciled: while the wage gap increases in the aggregate, the service sector and the high skill intensive industries, it decreases in the low skill intensive industries -which is in line with theoretical findings by Arndt (1997Arndt ( , 1998.