Managerial Economics

1. Managerial Economics Lecture Thirteen: Alternative perspectives on globalisation

2. Recap • Theory of comparative advantage • Appeals to economists because • Fits within age-old paradigm of specialisation • Consistent with usual static equilibrium method • But fails as empirical model (“a flop”) • Some “better” recent results test absolute advantage because drop “factor price equalization” • Dynamic model & analysis rejects “zero tariff” bias • This week: alternative (you guessed it!) Schumpeterian theory • Porter’s “Competitive Advantage of Nations”

3. Competitive Advantage • Direct attack on relevance of conventional economics: • “Why do some nations succeed and others fail in international competition? This question is perhaps the most frequently asked … of our times… • Yet … it is the wrong question… We must focus instead on another, much narrower one… • why does a nation become the home base for successful international competitors in an industry?... • why is one nation often the home for so many of an industry’s world leaders? • How can we explain why Germany is the home base for so many of the world’s leading makers of printing presses, luxury cars, & chemicals? • Why is tiny Switzerland the home base for international leaders in pharmaceuticals, chocolate…?” (1)

4. Competitive Advantage • Focus not on “natural endowment” (comparative advantage) & broadly defined industries (labour-intensive, capital intensive) but • Innovation & very specific industries • Luxury cars (Germany) • Ski boots (Italy) • Mobile phones (Finland!) • Porter’s theory far more aware of recent trends: • “The long-dominant paradigm … is inadequate… • the rise of the multinational corporation … [has] weakened the traditional explanations of why and where a nation exports…” (2) • Porter instead “seeks to isolate … the national attributes that foster competitive advantage in an industry…” (3)

5. Competitive Advantage • Dismisses other conventional explanations for trade • Good macroeconomic policies? • “Nations have enjoyed rapidly rising living standards despite budget deficits (Japan, Italy & Korea), appreciating currencies (Germany & Switzerland), and high interest rates (Italy & Korea)…” (3) • Cheap labour? • “The ability to compete despite paying high wages would seem to represent a far more desirable national target.” • Natural resources? • Even “within nations such as Korea, the United Kingdom, and Germany, it is the resource-poor regions that are prospering relative to the resource-rich ones” (4) • Government intervention? • “has occurred only in a subset of industries, and is far from universally successful even in Japan and Korea.”

6. Competitive Advantage • Management style? • “What is celebrated as good management practice in one industry would be disastrous in another.” (4) • Labour relations? (An Australian favourite…) • “Unions are very powerful in Germany and Sweden, with representation by law in management (Germany) and on boards of directors (Sweden)… both nations … contain some of the most internationally preeminent firms and industries of any country.” (5) • Rejects characterisation of nations as competitive • “We must abandon the whole notion of a ‘competitive nation’…” • And focus instead on “specific industries and industry segments…” (9)

7. Competitive Advantage • Rejects comparative advantage: • “the assumptions underlying factor comparative advantage … are unrealistic in many industries. • The standard theory assumes that there are no economies of scale, that technologies everywhere are identical, that products are undifferentiated, and that the pool of national factors is fixed.” (12) • (see Samuelson’s early reservations—last week’s lecture) • “The theory … is also frustrating for firms because … [it] assumes away a role for firm strategy, such as improving technology or differentiating products … most managers exposed to the theory find that it assumes away what they find to be most important and provides little guidance for appropriate company strategy.” (12-13)

8. Competitive Advantage • Old theory wrongly emphasises country & factors • New theory emphasises companies BUT still has clear role for countries: • “the leaders in particular industries … tend to be concentrated in a few nations… • Competitive advantage is created and sustained through a highly localised process… While globalization of competition might appear to make the nation less important, instead it seems to make it more so.” (19) • Basic elements of theory turn false comparative advantage theory on its head:

9. Competitive Advantage • “firms can and do choose strategies that differ… • successful international competitors often compete with global strategies in which trade and foreign investment are integrated…” (19) • “a nation’s firms gain competitive advantage in all its forms, not only the limited types of factor-based advantage contemplated in the theory of comparative advantage…” (20) • Acknowledges inspiration by Schumpeter but he “stopped short of answering the question … Why do some firms, based in some nations, innovate more than others?” (20) • Theory developed by empirical research: • 10 countries examined at deep industry level: Denmark (5.1 million people in 1987); Germany (61m); Italy 57; Japan 122; Korea 42; Singapore 2.6; Sweden 8.4; Switzerland 6.5; UK 57; USA 244 m

10. Competitive Advantage • Statistical technique used to select industries/firms in which each country was outstanding competitor in 1985 • > 100 industries selected • From obvious (Japan semiconductors) • To obscure (British biscuits) • Scan table 26-27 • Historical study of industry undertaken • Global history as well as specific to successful country • “In printing presses … we sought to understand why Germany and Switzerland had sustained advantage but also why the United States had lost ground and Japan was gaining.” (28) • Found “country” far from relevant scale of analysis:

11. Competitive Advantage • “Successful firms are frequently concentrated in particular cities or states within a nation. In the United States … • many of the nation’s leading real estate developers are based in Houston, Texas; • oil & gas equipment suppliers in Houston; • hospital management chains in … Nashville…; • carpet producers in Dalton, Georgia;… • Something about these locations provides a fertile environment for firms in these particular industries.” (29)

12. Competitive Advantage • Narrow and meaningful definition of industry used: • “Many discussions of competition … employ overly broad definitions such as banking, chemicals, or machinery. • These are not strategically meaningful industries because both the nature of competition and the sources of competitive advantage vary a great deal within them. • Machinery, for example, is not one industry but dozens of strategically distinct industries such as weaving machinery, rubber processing equipment, and printing machinery … each with its own unique requirements for competitive success.” (34)

13. Competitive Advantage • Delineates 5 forces shaping an industry: • “The threat of new entrants; • The threat of substitute products or services; • The bargaining power of suppliers; • The bargaining power of buyers; and • The rivalry among existing competitors” (35) • Two basic determinants of competitive advantage: • “lower cost and differentiation” (37) • “It is difficult, though not impossible, to be both lower-cost and differentiated relative to competitors.” (38) • “Any successful strategy, however, must pay close attention to both types of advantage while maintaining a clear commitment to superiority on one.” (38) • 3rd important factor is “competitive scope”—how broad industry is & how much of it firm covers

14. Competitive Advantage • Scan table p. 39 • Innovation crucial • First mover advantage can last well past “short run” • “German and Swiss dye companies (Bayer, Hoecsht, BASF, Sandoz,… Ciba-Geigy) have sustained their positions as international leaders since before World War I…” (47) • “Early movers gain advantages such as being first to reap economies of scale, reducing costs through cumulative learning…” (47) • Schumpeter’s assumption confirmed: “Often, innovators are ‘outsiders’ … to existing industry.” (48) Also… • “larger companies were often supplanted by smaller ones…” (49)

15. Competitive Advantage • 4 key determinants of Competitive Advantage: • Factor conditions • Only one considered by comparative advantage • Concerns innovation as well as “endowment” • Demand conditions… • Related & supporting industries… • Firm strategy, structure, and rivalry.” (71) • Porter’s “National Diamond”: scan p. 72 • “Advantages throughout the ‘diamond’ are necessary for achieving and sustaining competitive success … [but] • Advantage in every determinant is not a prerequisite…” (73)

16. Competitive Advantage • Factors may enhance CA through their absence: • “an abundance of factors may undermine instead of enhance competitive advantage. Selective disadvantages in factors, through influencing strategy and innovation, often contribute to sustained competitive success.” (74) • Opposite of economic theory belief