Abstract

The past decade has witnessed rapid globalization in tastes, in international trade and investments, and in labor markets, and this has sharply increased international competitiveness among industrial countries and between industrial countries and the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Asia. The paper examines the factors that affect the international competitiveness of nations and the reasons for the United States being the most competitive economy in the world today. Rapid technological change, downsizing, and strong competition from NIEs, however, has resulted in real wages not rising very much in the United States and jobs not growing in Europe during the past decade.