International competitiveness: A review article

Michael E. Porter's book, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (Porter, 1990), throws interesting new light on the international competitiveness of national firms. It deserves wide readership but this is likely to be handicapped by its length (855’ pages) and discursive style. Section I of this review article describes the approach of the book, Section II presents a short version of the main thesis, Section III offers a critical review of the argument, and, finally, Section IV examines the implications of the volume for the theory of international trade.