We hear a lot about America’s struggles to compete with other nations around the globe, but Barron’s editorial page editor Thomas G. Donlan reminds us in his latest column that the United States still has a number of advantages … despite governments’ best efforts to fritter them away. Donlan ponders the results of a new ranking published by the World Competitiveness Center, operated by a Swiss business school named IMD (formerly the Institute for Management Development).
The U.S. was ranked second for 2011, behind Hong Kong. The bad news is that it was first in 2010 and most years before, but it’s worth contemplating the advantages that a group of international business executives and analysts still can find in the U.S. economy.
At the top is access to financing, followed by a strong research-and-development culture, an effective legal environment, dynamism of the economy, a skilled workforce, and reliable infrastructure. At the bottom, they find the U.S. lacks competency of government and a competitive tax regime.
All of the top six assets are usually cited as American problems by competitiveness experts, especially those in government, while we rarely meet officials aware that American governments and their tax system are so poorly regarded. The experts rarely work on economic problems created by government.
