Outsourcing, information leakage, and consulting firms

I analyze the R&D investment affirms that decide between outsourcing and in-house production when information leakage is present (contractors learn clients ' technology and can diffuse it to competitors) in a general equilibrium model. Information leakage tends to concentrate the outsourcing market: despite the fact that the original market is competitive, when a market for information arises, it is monopolistic. If contractors do not have control of the information, the market splits into a set of high-tech firms that never outsource and a set of low-tech firms that always outsource. The equilibrium structure captures several features observable in the management consulting industry.