Economical and Ethical Implications of Off-Shoring Decisions from Germany to Romania
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Economical and Ethical Implications of Off-shoring Decisions from Germany to Romania Master Thesis 8/31/2015 Tudor Mihai Pavel - 4329910 Management of Technology Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management Delft University of Technology (This page intentionally left blank) i Economical and Ethical Implications of Off-shoring Decisions from Germany to Romania MASTER THESIS Student name: Tudor-Mihai Pavel Student number: 4329910 Graduation date: 31 August 2015 Graduation Committee: Chairman: Prof. Dr. C.P. (Cees) van Beers Professor of Management of Technical Innovation First Supervisor: Dr. S.T.H. (Servaas) Storm Assistant Professor in the Section of Economics of Technology and Innovation Second Supervisor: Prof. Dr. I.R. (Ibo) van de Poel Professor of Ethics and Technology ii Executive Summary With globalization, off-shoring has become a common practice for companies because of its cost saving advantages and ability to access needed human capital. However, off-shoring is often associated with the job loss and wage change in the domestic country. With the opening of the East European market, Germany has become one of the most important foreign investor in Romania. The most important objective of this master thesis is to see whether there is a correlation between the German off-shoring in Romania and the employment level and wage level in the two countries. More specifically, our interest is to see whether indeed the German off-shoring does lead to job loss and wage decrease in Germany as some studies suggest or there is an opposite effect that can be associated with the German off-shoring. In addition, the master thesis is to focus on the lower-wage county, Romania, as well and on whether there is a change in employment and wage levels in Romania that can be associated with the process of off-shoring. The master thesis has an additional secondary research objective, naming to bring ethical discussion in the context of the off-shoring process. The econometrical analysis used to answer the main research question is to provide insights about the job displacement and change in the wage levels in the two countries, but the question remains whether the German off-shoring process is to be perceived as ethical or not. Therefore, two main ethical theories are to be used: the utilitarian framework that argues that an act should be followed as long as it brings the ‘greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people’ and the Rawlsian framework that suggests that an act should be taken as long as it is in the advantage of the people situated in the least advantageous position. By applying these two ethical frameworks, we should find out to what extent is the German off-shoring process to Romania an ethical one. In order to attain the research objective and to answer the main research question, the first step is to derive a measure for the German off-shoring in Romania. With the help of Feenstra’s and Hanson’s method and the data available in the World Input-Output Database, the actual off-shoring index is derived for Romania and Germany that show the trend of German off-shoring to Romania during 1995 and 2011. We have limit ourselves to the 1995-2011 research period since the World Input-Output Database is limited to information on only those particular years. The next step is to find an appropriate measure for the employment and wage levels in Romania and Germany. Using data available from the German Statistical Institute, the average real net wage for Germany is obtained as a measurement for the wage level in Germany. For the employment level in Germany, the total number of employees in Germany is used. Similarly, the Romanian Statistical Institute provides data for calculating the average real net wage in Romania. However, for reasons of controlling for different factors such as migrating population, the ratio of the number of total employees to the total population is used as a measurement for the employment level in Romania. The actual off-shoring indexes for Romania and Germany are taken together with the data on employment and wage levels for Romania and Germany respectively. For each set of data a linear regression analysis is performed. iii The results of the linear regression analyses give us interesting insights on the effect of German off- shoring on the Romanian and German employment and wage levels. First there is a strong positive association between the German off-shoring and Romanian wages that can be explained by the fact that Romania was a closed economy during the communist period and the opening up of its market meant a slow process of wage adjustment towards market values. In addition, there is also a positive but not as strong correlation between Romanian jobs and the German off-shoring in Romania. The results show that although on the total economy, the German off-shoring to Romania is expected to create more job opportunities, the primary and secondary Romanian sectors are expected to lose jobs due to the off- shoring process. One explanation for this result is that the primary and secondary sectors in Romania were inefficient and the off-shoring process through the new technology it brought replaced part of the labour work with more efficient machine labour. This explanation is also supported by the increase in labour productivity that Romania went through that period. On the other hand, the results for Germany give a different picture. The German wages are found to be negatively associated with the off-shoring process. One reason for such result is that while German jobs are moved elsewhere, the German supply of jobs is shrinking. This in turn affects the bargaining powers of the German employee who is forced to settle for smaller wages. In addition, the German off-shoring is positively correlated with the total number of jobs in Germany. The results show us that even though there are jobs lost in the primary and secondary sectors in Germany because of the off-shoring process, there are additional jobs created in the tertiary sector as other studies have suggested. The results of the econometrical analysis showing the expected change in the number of jobs and in the wage levels in the two countries are then used for the ethical discussion. We have argued that the German off-shoring is meeting both the utilitarian and the Rawlsian principles from Romania’s perspective. However, from the ethical discussion, we have concluded that the utilitarian principle is not met from the German perspective. The Rawlsian principle is nevertheless met from the German perspective as well if we consider the people unemployed to be the ones in the least advantageous position. Finally, the master thesis gives a couple of recommendations for the Romanian and German governments and for the German companies interested in the off-shoring process. We have argued that, through their roles in the society, governments should be more interested in helping the ones in the least advantageous position. Therefore, the Romanian and German governments should look at the German off-shoring process in a positive light. On the other hand, German companies are not responsible for the entire society, but we have argued that a company is behaving in a more ethical way as long as it also strives for creating a greater good for the society. Therefore, the German off-shoring process should be still pursued by the German companies as long as they redirect part of their money saved through the off-shoring process towards increasing the real wage of German employees. In this way, the negative effect of German off-shoring on German wages should be reduced and German companies could provide indeed a greater good for the society. The master thesis has served its purpose of establishing the correlation between the German off-shoring and the employment level and wage level in Germany and Romania as well as of discussing the ethical iv impact of the German off-shoring. However there are still some directions for research for the future. The first direction deals with finding out whether, aside from correlation, there is causality between German off-shoring and employment and wage levels in the two countries. Moreover, the results for Germany and Romania should be investigated if they could be generalized for a high-wage and a low- wage country respectively. Finally, the ethical discussion is not entirely complete without considering the diminishing marginal utility of money. Future research should find a way in taking into account this principle in the ethical discussion. Keywords: Off-shoring, employment, wage, ethical, utilitarianism, Rawls v Acknowledgement First of all, I am thankful for the great opportunity I had to further continue my studies within TU Delft. It has been an amazing experience for me in the last two years from which I have learned a lot and I have to thank all the staff from the Management of Technology program for sharing their knowledge and for opening my eyes in so many ways. Two years ago when I have started the master program I could not have imagine that I would end up in combining economic concepts, statistical analysis and ethical principles for my master thesis paper. However, this is what I have been working towards in the last six months and I hope that my work is going to be a useful tool for further discussion related to the off- shoring process. I would like to thank especially the members of my graduation committee, who supported me in the last six months. Dr Servaas Storm has been an excellent supervisor who guided me throughout this entire period.