Telemigration and Development: On the Offshorability of Teleworkable Jobs - NBER Working Paper 29387

Aug 26, 2026

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The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated remote work, raising a central policy question: how many newly remote jobs can be relocated overseas. The paper provides a rough quantification using two observations: offshore work is trade in services, and telemigrants equal service-trade volume divided by average wages. Gravity-model estimates are used to project new telemigrants under lower barriers, suggesting limited transformative effects for most emerging economies while noting that alternative modeling can generate larger, asymmetric outcomes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages26

Reading Time1 h 6 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Telemigration and the future of globalisation

Offshorable service jobs and development impact

Job offshorability measurement approaches

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES TELEMIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT: ON THE OFFSHORABILITY OF TELEWORKABLE JOBS Richard Baldwin Jonathan I. Dingel Working Paper 29387 [http://www.nber.org/papers/w29387](http://www.nber.org/papers/w29387) NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 October 2021 We thank Linghui Wu and Ka Lok (Steve) Wong for excellent research assistance, Kari Greenswag for helpful editorial assistance, and Gene Grossman and Thomas Sampson for valuable feedback. This paper was prepared for the book project, AI/Robots: Labour, Trade, Growth and Welfare, edited by Lili Yan Ing and Gene Grossman for the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) in Jakarta. Dingel thanks the Cohen and Keenoy Faculty Research Fund at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2021 by Richard Baldwin and Jonathan I. Dingel. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Telemigration and Development: On the Offshorability of Teleworkable Jobs Richard Baldwin and Jonathan I. Dingel NBER Working Paper No. 29387 October 2021 JEL No. F1,J2 ABSTRACT The Covid-19 pandemic has introduced huge numbers of employers and employees to remote work. How many of these newly remote jobs will go overseas? We offer a rough quantification based on two observations: 1) offshore work is trade in services, and 2) the number of telemigrants is the volume of this trade divided by the average wage. Combining these with gravity-model estimates, we can roughly predict the number of new telemigrants that would arise from lower barriers to trade in services. Telemigration seems unlikely to be transformative when it comes to the development paths of most emerging economies. The baseline service trade flows are modest, and the standard gravity model restricts modest changes to have modest impacts. There are no tipping points in structural gravity models. Finally, we propose a simple model of telemigration in which small changes can have large consequences. The key is to assume that latent comparative advantage takes a different shape than typically assumed in quantitative trade models. Given this, small changes in trade costs can generate large and asymmetric increases in the exports of service tasks from low-wage nations. Richard Baldwin Pavillard 6 CH-1009 Pully SWITZERLAND and CEPR and also NBER[rbaldwin@cepr.org](rbaldwin@cepr.org) Jonathan I. Dingel Booth School of Business University of Chicago 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue Chicago, IL 60637 and NBER [jdingel@chicagobooth.edu](jdingel@chicagobooth.edu) Telemigration and development: On the offshorability of teleworkable jobs Richard Baldwin (Graduate Institute, Geneva) and Jonathan I. Dingel (University of Chicago, Booth School of Business)1 October 2021 Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic has introduced huge numbers of employers and employees to remote work. How many of these newly remote jobs will go overseas? We offer a rough quantification based on two observations: 1) offshore work is trade in services, and 2) the number of telemigrants is the volume of this trade divided by the average wage. Combining these with gravity-model estimates, we can roughly predict the number of new telemigrants that would arise from lower barriers to trade in services. Telemigration seems unlikely to be transformative when it comes to the development paths of most emerging economies. The baseline service trade flows are modest, and the standa

FAQs

What question does the paper focus on regarding telemigration?

It asks how much measurable impact telemigration will have on development, driven by how many service-sector jobs can be offshored from rich nations to emerging markets.

How does the paper quantify the number of telemigrants?

It treats offshore work as trade in services and defines telemigrants as service-trade volume divided by the average wage, then combines this with gravity-model estimates.

Why does the paper suggest telemigration may not be transformative for most emerging economies?

Baseline service trade flows are modest and standard gravity models imply only modest changes, with no tipping points in structural gravity models.

Aug 26, 2026

Uploaded by Xiajie