Why Obama Needs A Competitiveness Audit

President Obama is talking about ‘insourcing’…bringing jobs back into this country again. That’s great.

But can insourcing really create enough jobs to make a difference? That depends on how on whether  the U.S. is becoming competitive in a  broad range of industries, or whether it’s a limited phenomenon.

That’s why PPI has proposed a Competitiveness Audit as an essential part of a job-creation strategy.

The Competitiveness Audit will compare the price of selected imports with the comparable domestically produced goods and services. That will tell us the size of the ‘price gap’ between imports and domestic production.

The initial results of the Competitiveness Audit will enable us to identify industries that are globally competitive (domestic prices are below import prices, so the price gap is negative); industries that are currently uncompetitive (domestic prices are significantly above import prices); and industries that are ‘near-competitive’ (domestic prices only slightly above import prices).

The results of the Competitiveness Audit will enable businesses and economic development agencies to target their insourcing efforts to industries that are ‘near competitive’, where a bit of government help could make a big difference.

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About Michael Mandel 126 Articles

Michael Mandel was BusinessWeek's chief economist from 1989-2009, where he helped direct the magazine's coverage of the domestic and global economies.

Since joining BusinessWeek in 1989, he has received multiple awards for his work, including being honored as one of the 100 top U.S. business journalists of the 20th century for his coverage of the New Economy. In 2006 Mandel was named "Best Economic Journalist" by the World Leadership Forum.

Mandel is the author of several books, including Rational Exuberance, The Coming Internet Depression, and The High Risk Society.

Mandel holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

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