Industry Productivity in the Manufacturing Sector: The Role of Offshoring - ARCHIVED

Two sources of industry productivity growth are firm productivity improvements and the reallocation of productive resources from less productive to more productive firms. This paper studies the role of offshoring in improving industry productivity through these two channels, using a new Canadian manufacturing data base that links the Annual Survey of Manufactures and the Importer Register database at the commodity level. The database provides information on direct imports of intermediate inputs by firms. This allows us to estimate offshoring intensity in Canada at the firm level, and to differentiate those imports by region of origin.