Over the last four decades companies have dispersed more and more of their activities across the globe. Data and analysis from Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin suggest that the U.S. is losing out on location decisions at an alarming rate, even for high value adding activities such as R&D that it should be able to attract.
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 Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin frame the HBS project on U.S. competitiveness by defining "competitiveness," assessing the state of U.S. competitiveness, and pinpointing dynamics that threaten America's competitiveness.
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.
As part of the U.S. Competitiveness Project, Harvard Business School asked its alumni to complete an in-depth survey on U.S. competitiveness.
Industries located in regions with strong clusters (i.e. a large presence of other related industries) experience higher growth in new business formation and start-up employment.
The performance of regional economies varies markedly in terms of wage, wage growth, employment growth, and patenting rate.
The real work of raising productivity and innovative capacity usually occurs not in our nation's capital, but in the cities and regions where firms are based and competition actually takes place.
In the modern competitive marketplace, nations have their own competitive advantages. These are investigated and discussed in-depth.