Economic Growth: Success in An Interdependent World

The increasingly interdependent global economy poses both opportunities and threats for individual nations and businesses. The benefits that are derived from cooperation and collaboration can be rapidly offset by global competition and conflict. In The Marketing of Nations: A Strategic Approach to Building National Wealth, Philip Kotler, Somkid Jatusripitak, and Suvit Maesincee address the major dilemmas and trade-offs faced by nations trying to improve their economic situations. The book also offers strategies for economic growth in an interdependent world, coordination of a companys business policies with a nations public policies, and implementation of wealth-creation plans. Previous researchers have determined conditions that contribute to economic development, the authors acknowledge. What sets The Marketing of Nations apart is that it takes a strategic-planning approach to the problem of building national wealth, and provides operational-management guidance to government and business leaders in developing as well as industrialized countries. The book begins by examining the major forces and trends that are producing discontinuities in global affairs. First is global interdependence. "Since World War II, the international economic system has evolved into a truly global economy--an interdependent system of trade, investment, and development that connects nearly all regions of the world," say the authors. "In the new context, national and regional economies remain vitally interconnected but no one player can impose its will on the rest of the world." As a guidebook for developing a nations strategic posture, The Marketing of Nations recommends specific actions, including development of industrial clusters, an industrial portfolio, and trade policy, as well as government support policies, including macroeconomic policies and infrastructure development. Finally, the authors note, "Economic development requires cooperation between business and government. Traditionally, each group has viewed the other with suspicion and thus has often, unwittingly, worked at cross purposes." In other words, in the interest of national prosperity, business and government must work toward a united front. The Big Ten: The Big Emerging Markets and How They Will Change Our Lives Executives in the U.S. who view Russia, Germany, and Japan as Americas greatest global competition have not heeded the alert sounded by former Undersecretary of Commerce Jeffrey E. Garten and his colleagues. The greatest challenge to Americas global economic position in the 21st century will come from the Big Emerging Markets, warns Garten, who worked in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1995 and today serves as dean of the Yale School of Management. These countries--Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Turkey, Poland, India, Indonesia, China and Taiwan, and South Korea--also present great opportunities for U.S. business, Garten says in The Big Ten: The Big Emerging Markets and How They Will Change Our Lives. However, these up-and-coming countries "could also pose great risks--political and economic turmoil, challenges to our quest for free markets and democracy, assaults on our standards of human rights, and threats to our national security." Dealing with the Big Ten will be the key to our economic well-being and national security in the decades ahead, Garten warns. Garten briefly profiles each of the 10 countries, and explains the selection criteria for naming them as BEMs. He outlines priorities for dealing with the Big Ten: domestic measures to help the U.S. accommodate a massive increase in imports; educational innovation to sharpen the countrys future competitiveness; corporate strategies to win markets overseas; and foreign policies to expand the U.S. influence on the BEMs. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc. A detailed and authoritative analysis of one of the Big Ten markets is presented in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc. by Willem Van Kemenade. Since 1977 the author has worked as a freelance journalist throughout the Far East. His observations on the consequences of Chinese reunification and his analysis of the true internal power structures of the three Chinas provide a multifaceted portrait of the fast-rising superpower. Van Kemenade analyzes Chinas search for a new system that deals less with ideology and political struggle and more with economic reform, social stability, and rapid growth. "Since the early 1980s, extensive trade with and investment from Hong Kong--and since the late 1980s, also Taiwan--as well as the contaminating influence of the social systems and lifestyles of these two peripheral Chinese territories, have played a major role" in Chinas transformation, he notes. China is now well on its way to becoming the latest "East Asian miracle," Van Kemenade observes. China itself "claims to have all the necessary ingredients to make it at least an equal of the U.S. and, in the long term, perhaps even number one."