We set up a general equilibrium model, in which offshoring to a low-wage country can lead to job polarisation in the high-wage country. Job polarisation is the result of a reallocation of labour across firms that differ in productivity and pay wages that are positively linked to their profits by a rent-sharing mechanism. Offshoring involves fixed and task-specific variable costs, and as a consequence it is chosen only by the most productive firms, and only for those tasks with the lowest variable offshoring costs. A reduction in those variable costs increases offshoring at the intensive and at the extensive margin, with domestic employment shifted from the newly offshoring firms in the middle of the productivity distribution to firms at the tails of this distribution, paying either very low or very high wages. We also study how the reallocation of labour across firms affects economy-wide unemployment. Offshoring reduces unemployment when it is confined to high-productivity firms, while this outcome is not guaranteed when offshoring is also chosen by low-productivity firms.

This work analyzes the saving and consumption behavior of agents faced with the possibility of unemployment in a dynamic and stochastic life cycle model. The intertemporal optimization is based on Dynamic Programming with a backward recursion algorithm. The implemented uncertainty is not based on income shocks as it is done in traditional life cycle models but uses Markov probabilities where the probability for the next employment status of the agent depends on the current status. The utility function used is a CRRA function (constant relative risk aversion), combined with a CES function (constant elasticity of substitution) and has several consumption goods, a subsistence level, money and a bequest function. / Diese Arbeit modelliert das Spar- und Konsumverhalten von Individuen in Deutschland mit einem Lebenszyklusmodell. Dabei hat das Modell zwei Besonderheiten, erstens trifft die Möglichkeit arbeitslos zu werden nicht jeden Agenten des Models mit der gleichen Wahrscheinlichkeit, sondern wird von Bildungsabschluss und dem Beschäftigungsstatus des Agenten beeinflußt und zweitens weicht die verwendete Nutzenfunktion von den Standardnutzenfunktionen ab und implementiert Vererbung, Geld, verschiedene Güter und Subsistenzlevel. Der Optimierungsalgorithmus basiert auf Dynamischer Programmierung.

Univ., Diss.--Mainz.

Techn. University, Diss., 2007--Darmstadt.

Diss. Göteborg : University. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Pa., Univ. of Pennsylvania, Diss.--Philadelphia, 2003. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich. - Enth. 3 Beitr.

Universiẗat, Diss.--Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2007.

Calif., Univ. of California, Diss.--Berkeley, 2002. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich.

RijksUniversity, Habil.-Schr.--Groningen, 2001. / Zsfassung in niederländ. Sprache.

Univ., Diss.--Osnabrück, 2003.