THE DETERMINANTS OF NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS
Mercedes Delgado
Christian Ketels
Michael E. Porter
Scott Stern
Working Paper 18249 http://www.nber.org/papers/w18249 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
July 2012
The authors would like to acknowledge invaluable guidance from Antonio Ciccone, and essential data analysis by Rich Bryden. Albert Bravo-Biosca, Aart Kraay and Giuseppe Iarossi offered very helpful suggestions. We are also grateful to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Network team, and the participants in the seminars at the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank,
Orkestra, Temple University, BI Norwegian Business School, Tsinghua University, Drexel University,
Lehigh University, and MOC faculty workshop for very helpful comments. The authors at various times made compensated presentations at meetings that focused on issues of national competitiveness, using the data and results presented in the enclosed paper. This work was funded in part by the World
Economic Forum. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official
NBER publications.
© 2012 by Mercedes Delgado, Christian Ketels, Michael E. Porter, and Scott Stern. All rights reserved.
Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.
The Determinants of National Competitiveness
Mercedes Delgado, Christian Ketels, Michael E. Porter, and Scott Stern
NBER Working Paper No. 18249
July 2012
JEL No. O12,O47,O5
ABSTRACT
We define foundational competitiveness as the expected level of output