Deep Competitiveness

and significant policy initiatives, whereas other similarly situated states did not. The answer was in some ways profoundly simple: States in which there was a broad and highly developed consensus about the need to act did more, and did it better, than states where consensus was less broad and less developed. In short, a widely shared understanding of the need to act, coupled with the right analysis of the problem, matters. That lesson is relevant today at the national level. Even with the numerous reports, books, editorials, conferences, and hearings highlighting the “gathering storm” of global competitiveness, many leaders are seemingly still not completely convinced. Indeed, the prevailing mood in many quarters and among much of the economic policy punditry is one of complacency. For these skeptics, the case simply has not been made that the United States faces a significant competitiveness challenge. For example, in reference to reports citing a shortage of U.S. graduates in sciR O B E R T D. AT K I N S O N