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In industrialized economies, International Outsourcing is often blamed for destroying jobs and thus, inducing unemployment. Since most contributions examining International Outsourcing assume flexible wages, they do not address these concerns directly. This paper adopts a rigid wage approach and investigates the differences occurring. As theoretical results and the empirical panel data estimations for Germany show, effects depend on industry aggregation, the industry's skill intensity, and the labor market institution. Only in industries characterized by wage rigidity, outsourcing significantly increases low skilled unemployment. Consequently, not International Outsourcing but inflexible labor market institutions instead should be blamed for destroying low skill jobs.

The paper studies the effects of a one-sided minimum wage in a two-country model of intra-industry trade, in which multinational firms arise endogenously. With positive levels of intra-industry trade the adverse employment and welfare effects of an asymmetric minimum wage are significantly larger than in a non-trading economy. Multinational firms generally mitigate the effect somewhat. Even though factor prices are not equalized across countries, a (binding) wage floor in one country will prop up wages in the other. The flexible-wage country is insulated from shocks caused by factor accumulation in the rigid-wage country, while an increase in the labor supply of the latter economy may have profound impacts on labor market outcomes in both countries.