Journal Press India^®

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The paper attempts to give a brief discussion of economic competitiveness’ wherein productivity as a measure of national economic competitiveness and limitations. It studies the contribution of skills to productivity and focuses upon the relationship between skill formation and economic strategies of the countries. The paper studies the skill formation system and skill profiles of United Kingdom & Germany, and the linkages between skill formation system and competitiveness strategies followed by their subsequent outcomes. The national competitiveness has been proposed as an aggregate of national productivity. Though there has been considerable focus of skills to productivity, yet skills cannot be the sole driver of productivity, other drivers have equally significant impact on outcomes. There is a comparison between the High Skill Model of Germany and High/Low Skill Model of United Kingdom and the key differences between skill formation system of both the countries. It can be concluded that apart from skills other drivers of productivity and competitiveness have an equally significant impact on the outcome. The relationship between skill formation systems and the economic competitiveness strategies of nations are complex and interactive and both require constant fine tuning to respond to each other as well as to the contextual dimensions.

Keywords

Competitiveness, Productivity, High-skill equilibrium, Multidimensional, Globalization, National Competitive Potential.

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