Higher skills and the knowledge economy: the challenge of offshoring

Recent economics literature on offshoring highlights the trend towards the relocation of high-skill jobs to emerging economies. This evolution presents a challenge to the established knowledge economy discourse on which the relationship between higher education, higher skills, higher productivity and higher incomes has been based. This paper identifies some tentative impacts of offshoring for employment and education patterns in OECD countries and argues that the assumptions of the knowledge economy discourse need to be revised. The implications for higher education institutions are considered and three potential strategic responses are presented.