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Choosing the United States
A location decision is, in many respects, a referendum on a nation's competitiveness. When a company decides, say, to build a new plant in China rather than in the United States, it is effectively voting on the question of which country can best enable its success in the global marketplace. Over the past three decades, business activities have become increasingly mobile, and more and more countries have become viable contenders for them. But new data--including the results of an unprecedented survey of 10,000 Harvard Business School alumni--suggest that the U.S. is not winning its appropriate share of location decisions, even for high-value business activities such as R&D that it has traditionally been able to attract. In part, this is because U.S. policy makers are not addressing weaknesses in the national business environment. There are also problems at the corporate level: Many location decisions are incremental shifts of activities offshore; imagine a bucket with many small pinpricks. For instance, a software firm promotes American developers to high-end positions and hires workers from Eastern Europe to do lower-end work. As such, the decisions appear not to warrant exhaustive analysis. At the same time, managers ignore substantial hidden costs associated with non-U.S. locations and overlook the benefits they could reap were they to invest instead in local communities. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. locations, identifies the kinds of activities the U.S. must compete for, and outlines an agenda for action for government and business leaders.
Read the article here.
Tags: Challenge, Politics, Trade Policy
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(Read Professor David Moss's take on how to fix the U.S. political system in favor of U.S. competitiveness.)
Media
Don't Blame Apple for America's Broken Tax Code
24 May 2013 - Harvard Business Rview
Hard Business School's Mihir A. Desai, a answers a few questions about the recent Congressional tax inquiry of Apple and how this investigation fits into a larger debate about the corporate tax code.
Amid rancor, a chance for U.S. action on trade bill
23 May 2013 - Reuters
U.S. business groups are preparing to push for the bill, which would give the White House enhanced ability to negotiate trade deals and set out U.S. negotiating goals on issues ranging from cross-border electronic data flows to global supply chains and potentially even foreign currency practices.
New Study Shows U.S. Legal System is a Competitive Liability
22 May 2013 - New Study Shows U.S. Legal System is a Competitive Liability
The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform suggests that civil justice reform would play an important role in increasing the global competitiveness of American businesses.
21 Sep 2012
Don Seifman
I was delighted to learn that you are pursuing the questions of US competitiveness and employment. I learned about your work while listening to CNBC on the way to work this morning.
Best wishes.
Don Seifman