Trade and investment liberalization in the Pacific has highlighted the importance of structural competitiveness for both corporate executives and national policymakers. In Structural Competitiveness in the Pacific, a distinguished group of authors contributes to our understanding of patterns of structural competitiveness affecting trade and production links between East Asia and North America. Interaction between national policies and corporate strategies has given East Asian states clear advantages over North American competitors. The place of the Pacific in the world economy, infrastructures and financial structures in the region, American and Japanese structural competitiveness, sourcing by Japanese and American multinationals in the Pacific, as well as structural interdependencies and the potential for collective management across the region are all addressed in this volume.

Unlike previous comparative work addressing the decline in American competitiveness, Structural Competitiveness in the Pacific takes into account the significance of transnational production by international firms and places US problems in a regional comparative context which includes Japan and the industrializing East Asian states.