[sooheon]

I won't claim that it's empirically proven to be harmful, obviously there are so many intricacies in every case. However, I don't think it's clear that it's an obvious boon for the country either.

S. Korea's development, for example, has shown that export oriented growth, where the margins between international prices and local labor costs are enjoyed by the exporters, is one of the most powerful ways for an economy to grow. Outsourcing, OTOH, is guaranteed to funnel those margins back to the multinational, with little but the pittance wages and some nominal tariffs left behind for the people of the country.