A leading economic theorist analyzes the United States's place in the changing world economy in light of the emergence of an economically united Europe. By the author of The Zero Sum Society. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Thurow discusses the futures of the three major players in the battle for economic supremacy in the 21st century. Savings, investment, and education will determine who builds the next world-class economy (Europe is Thurow's prediction). Although the themes and critiques of the U.S. economy are typical Thurow (see his Zero Sum Solution , LJ 12/85), the international perspectives move this work into new territory beyond the usual U.S.-Japan comparisons. As always, Thurow has a knack for the telling phrase and the discovery of a significant trend. Highly recommended for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/91.
- Richard C. Schiming, Mankato State Univ., Minn.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Richard C. Schiming, Mankato State Univ., Minn.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Yesterday's mistakes should help us avoid tomorrow's,
By hsmith3@ibm.net (Houston Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America (Paperback)
Head to Head is a great example of one way books are superior to TV and Internet postings: they stay around for us to learn from the errors made by people TV personalities identify as "experts." When Lester Thurow was writing his book in 1991-1992, the U.S. was in the midst of what we know now was a mild and short-lived recession. But with the bias that many academics and government bureaucrats have against free market forces, which seem to the risk adverse who are attracted to a life in academia and government service, a chaotic way to deal with the powerful forces which provide a nation with jobs, products and the wealth that make mega-universities and fat government programs possible. Thurow took a book that looked as if it were going to be about Japan, Germany and the U.S. competing with each other, head to head, brain to brain as opposed to the old competition based on natural resources, and almost from page one made it into a diatribe warning that without Japan's Ministry of Finance's economic management and Germany's coddling of workers, America was going to be a second or third class nation. Of course we know now that Japan's economy was on the verge of stagnation and Germany is only now recognizing the need to remove employment guarantees if it is going to be globally competitive.If Thurow had been America's Minister of Finance we know into which businesses he would have directed funds: high definition television for which American consumers have never shown a great interest and the automobile building robots General Motors tried for a few years before replacing them with simpler machines. Meanwhile many of us were typing in cumbersome commands, using gopher and telnet to share information stored on around 70 computers. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee created HTML and HTTP to launch the World Wide Web. This development seems to have been unnoticed at MIT's economics department, but at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigne an undergraduate student, Marc Andreesen recognized how a point and click way of collecting information might change the world. The beta version of Mosaic came out shortly after Thurow's book and Andreesen then created Netscape. Computers and the Internet went on to give America the increase in productivity Thurow thought we couldn't achieve because the government wasn't building highways and bridges. The funding came from entrepreneurs who risked their own money and consumers who saw the benefits of the new technology. Once again, history proved that individual investors and consumers can guide Adam Smith's invisible hand to do things no government bureaucracy or academic researcher could envision. But academics and government functionaries, such as Thurow's colleague in MIT's economics department, Paul Krugmann, our new Secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence Summers formerly a Harvard economics professor and his former colleague, Martin Feldstein are arguing that bureaucrats have a better idea of the value of a Thai baht or Korean won than the currency traders who signal to corporate CFO's how many baht they should ask for goods they sell today to pay their German employees in marks tomorrow. They dream of something like an International Ministry of Finance. Some people never learn.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed zero-sum view of the world,
By Vilayat Khan (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America (Paperback)
This book is racy reading , and is made of the stuff non-fiction bestsellers are sometimes made of - a lack of intellectual rigour combined with a hypothesis that appeals to the general public. Tell the world that countries are like corporations , and that America and Japan (or any two countries) are engaged in a competitive game similar to that between Coca Cola and Pepsi - and there is a likelihood that a lot of heads will nod in supposed understanding. No mention is made of the fact that international trade is NOT a zero-sum game , and that exchange based on comparative advantage will lead to a win-win situation for both countries involved. Instead the book harps on the assumption that somehow at the end of the game there will be winners and losers. In fact, it asserts that a united Europe will be the winner among the US , Japan and Europe. That prediction does not look like being borne out anytime soon , and Japan is languishing in a decade long mild recession - even though Japan did follow a policy of preferentially promoting "strategic" sectors , similar to what the book suggests. The book's assertion that there are some high value-added sectors that ought to be promoted have been demolished by more careful analyses - notably by Paul Krugman's articles in Foreign Affairs ( March/April 1994) . These analyses show that productivity growth , rather than victory or defeat in some supposed economic Olympics , is the primary causal factor behind continued growth or stagnation. Someone (I think Jagdish Bhagwati , but not sure) said in response to the assertion that it is better to produce semiconductor chips than potato chips ---- that you can produce sophisticated semicon chips, export them and import potato chips, lie in front of the TV all day long eating potato chips, and become a society of morons. On the other hand, you can produce potato chips , export it and import semiconductor chips, and use them to improve education. The hollowness of a lot of assertions in this Thurow book can be demolished by this silly-sounding but relevant quote. The doctor's prescription is as follows - if you read this book , read some effective antidotes (like the Krugman articles) - otherwise you may be condemned to a view of the world that is siren-like in its appeal , but lacks even a modicum of truth.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Bad Economics,
This review is from: Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America (Paperback)
The book is disappointing as it uses flawed arithmetics. The author views economics as a zero-sum game. He confuses competitiveness among corporations as being the same as amongst countries. The book seems intellectually rigorous but any serious economist will tell you it is full of fallacies. One gets a better idea of international economics by reading Pop Internationalism by Paul Krugman, one of the most brilliant younger economist.
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