The Evolution of Comparative or Competitive Advantage: A Preliminary Report on a Study

This paper is a preliminary report on a study of the comparative evolution of several major high tech industries in the US, Japan and Western Europe. In general the paper examines similarities and differences in the ways these industries developed in different countries, and the factors explaining those differences. The project especially focused on understanding the instances when firms in a particular country gained a strong competitive advantage over firms based in other countries. The industries studied are: organic chemical products, computers, semiconductors, software, numerical controlled machine tools, pharmaceuticals in the age of biotechnology and medical devices. Copyright 1996 by Oxford University Press.