International Outsourcing vs. ICT in explaining the wage gap in Italian Manufacturing

The aim of this paper is to empirically evaluate the relative eects of international outsourcing of materials and services and of ICT capital deepening on wage inequality between blue and white collars in the Italian manufacturing industry during the period 1985 - 1999. We merge an administrative data set on workers' wages and individual characteristics with data on imported inputs from Italian input-output tables and other sector-level variables. Results show that international outsourcing plays an important role in shaping the observed pattern in the wage gap, both in traditional and innovative industries, while the role of technological change is less pronounced and limited to innovative sectors.