What to do about it? Faculty members at the Harvard Business School seem to have taken an end-run approach. Their recent major initiative, the U.S. Competitiveness Project, focuses on what businesses can do to improve the United States' standing without Washington's help. But they have some ideas for government, too. At last week's event, the project's co-chairs, professors Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin, unpacked a plan to address what Porter calls the greatest threat to U.S. competitiveness since World War II or before.

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