普瑞坦•班那吉　Pritam Banerjee

關鍵字

印度、服務業貿易、資訊產業、商業程序外包

中文摘要

由於國際經濟關係全球化加速，自1980年代以來，服務業的出口大幅成長。而服務業貿易的增長受到三項因素的主控。服務業必須要促進全球商品的移動，尤其是服務業已被國際化成為商品貿易的一部份。服務業本身也已變成全球性。金融、財政與保險是最明顯的例子，但是其他如零售、娛樂、教育、研究與發展也變得更加國際化。更有進者，快速變遷的科技與商業過程已可以將整合的服務業過程分割處理，因而出現很多專業的、商業的與技術性的服務業送到離岸（offshoring）去處理的現象。不過，無論是直接就國內生產與消費的角度抑或是由主控離岸運營的大型多國籍公司（MNCs）的國際運送鍊（international delivery chains）管理的角度來看，全球貿易裡專業的與技術性的服務業仍然是工業化的國家所操控。從此意義來看，服務業的價值鍊（value chains）與大多數的商品貿易的價值鍊並沒有太大的不同。但是，以印度為首的新興經濟大國卻因此而變成日益重要的生產與遞送的樞紐。

Key Words

India, IT, BPO, outsourcing

Abstract

The idea of outsourcing-offshoring can be explained by three critical insights available in economic theory. The first insight comes from the idea of the firm as expounded by Ronald Coase in his seminal work on explaining why firms emerge as organizational units of economic activity. According to Ronald Coase, people begin to organize their production in firms when the transaction cost of coordinating production through the market exchange, given imperfect information, is greater than within the firm. But the reverse is also true, i.e. when firms find that the transaction cost of coordinating production outside the firm is low, and short to medium term returns due to cost saving and/or productivity gains high, they might decide to outsource that activity.
The important element here is that there is change in market dynamics that substantially reduces the cost of coordinating production outside the firm. Such a transaction cost reducing market dynamic can arise from several factors, i.e. significant fall in transport and communication costs, development of business networks, and standardization of production that allows cost-less migration of a process from within the firm to a third party supplier.

This is exactly the insight that comes from the theory of fragmentation of production outlined by Jones and Kierzkowski (2001).? Two forces drive fragmentation within this framework; technology changes that allow fragmentation of what were formerly single production processes, and the falling costs of services that allow the coordination of such fragmented production. Such fragmentation follows a progression that starts at the firm (or factory level) and eventually extends to regions and finally beyond borders, i.e. offshoring.

But the understanding of the process of fragmentation of production and offshoring cannot be complete without referring to Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg’s recent work on trade in tasks. Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg explicitly model production as a continuum of tasks rather than intermediate inputs. Envisaging the production process as a continuum of tasks is especially relevant in the case of professional services which are essentially a bundle of specialized tasks.