Market thickness and outsourcing services

This paper examines whether the outsourcing of business services is supported more in thicker local markets. In particular, I examine manufacturing plants' practices of outsourcing business services. Using plant-level data from the 1992 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM), I find evidence that supports the view that a plant's likelihood of outsourcing is greater in thicker local markets, while the extent of the effect varies across services.