Triple Hex in Unemployment
Unemployment and America’s competitive advantage is discussed in an article by Phin Upham.
Recent work by the OECD sheds light on the dynamics of big business and small business sectors of developed countries. Data collected by governments across the world suggests that the US has a relatively small business sector compared to other developed countries. A recent study places the US as second only to Luxembourg in how small a percent of GDP the United States’ small business sector is, well below European competitors. This holds no matter how you cut it, from focusing on manufacturing, by excluding farmers, or even looking at technology alone. The statistics suggest, contrary to expectations, that what America excels in in small businesses, rather, is not their number or size, but the ability to let them fail or scale into very large companies. The difficulty of this should not be underestimated and is among the central problems China’s fractured corporate markets struggle with today.
This holds even more true when we examine the value added by different sized businesses ‘”statistically the US also has one of the lowest value add by small businesses in the world and, unexpectedly, statistically one of the highest value add by large companies. President Coolidge said “the business of the American people is business” ‘” in the modern world, for better or worse, this seems to increasingly be big business.
[full article: Associated Content]
Phin Upham attended the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania). Phin is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He can be reached at PhinUpham.com.
