ABSTRACT
Introduction Some trade theorists have argued that the notion of competitiveness cannot be extended from a characterization of the firm to that of a whole national economy. In particular Paul Krugman (1994) has criticized “the rhetoric of competitiveness – the view that, in the words of President Clinton, each nation is ‘like a big corporation competing in the global marketplace’ ” (p. 29);
[w]hen we say that a corporation is uncompetitive, we mean that its market position is unsustainable – that unless it improves its performance, it will cease to exist. Countries, on the other hand, do not go out of business. They may be happy or unhappy with their economic performance, but they have no well-defined bottom line. As a result, the concept of national competitiveness is elusive.
