Backshoring and nearshoring: An overview

Abstract

Abstract Increasingly, economies that have traditionally benefited from offshoring are losing some of their strategical advantages, with a consequent increase in backshoring by developed economies. This paper describes the phenomenon and tries to shed light on the current challenges, trends, and debates in the area, and on the main determinants of backshoring. A new phenomenon known as nearshoring is also analysed—this consists of relocating some previously offshored manufacturing activities so that they are now close to previous core locations, but not so close as to suffer from disagglomeration effects. This combines the advantages of offshoring and backshoring.