[Lessismore]

Try reading Michael Porter's "The Competitive Advantage of Nations," which is a MASSIVE study of 10 countries (U.S., Br., France, It., Japan, Switz, Germany, Sweden, and a couple of others) and their competitive advantage.

This has a '90 copyright? Written during the second Regan administration?

[LS]

Right. But his points are quite valid: competitiveness is not product A competing against product B, but cluster A competing against cluster B. And as he shows, these clusters are not easily formed, and certainly not easily dismantled (the Italian tile "cluster" has basically been around for a hundred years).

Moreover, I think he has some recent updates at Harvard Business School that continue to confirm his thesis in this book with new evidence.