In June 2015, nearly 75 experienced leaders from across business, government, labor, academia, and media gathered at Harvard Business School to discuss a topic of increasing concern in America: How can our nation continue to remain competitive while also providing a path to prosperity for more citizens? This report highlights the group’s deliberations and summarizes the HBS research that was presented during the convening.
Some of the world’s most original thinkers explain the competitiveness challenge America faces and point the way forward.
Manufacturing matters to a nation’s economic prosperity, not because it is an important source of jobs (it currently represents only about 10% of US employment) but because manufacturing competence is often an integral part of innovation. By Professors Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih.
In thinking about the competitiveness of a nation, analysts commonly focus on economic factors, such as exports, unit labor costs, and fiscal policy, among others. "Politics" is not typically high on the list, if it appears at all, observes Professor David Moss.
Professors Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein make recommendations in three important domains in which the U.S. financial system has underperformed: financial stability, housing finance, and investment costs.
The world is interdependent, and the U.S. economy is still too large for anyone to profit from a rapid decline in its well-being.
For decades, U.S. companies have been outsourcing manufacturing in the belief that it held no competitive advantage. That has been a disaster.