Number: RL32484
Title: Foreign Outsourcing: Economic Implications and Policy Responses
Authors: Craig K. Elwell, Government and Finance Division 
Abstract: The destructive aspects of foreign outsourcing are costly and distressing to those whose jobs are lost to increased imports. Therefore, matters of efficiency and equity are intertwined and one of the principal challenges for policymakers in the face of foreign outsourcing (and trade in general) is to find ways to ameliorate the associated harm, without sacrificing the economy-wide gains that such trade generates. Compensation for loss and adjustment assistance is thought by economists to offer the best chance for securing higher economic efficiency along with distributional equity.
Pages: 26
Date: June 21, 2006