I just came across the 2002/2003 Global Competitiveness Report. To make it short - US storms ahead the rankings in most categories.

Interesting from a German point of view is the big difference between macroeconomic (22) competitiveness and microeconomic (4). How can this country afford to have such economically uninterested leadership?

"countries whose company development is ahead is ahead of the business environment include four G-7 countries: Japan, Germany, France, and
Italy. In these countries, significant changes in public policy are necessary to improve the environment for competition. Unless such improvements are implemented, companies will be prone to move operations or make new investments outside the countries."

While these huge statistics do have their flaws, I consider most of the trends shown over several years and reports as quite accurate. Good reading material...