Big may not be better for most countries - FT.com

Big may not be better for most countries - FT.com



If defense is a priority and trade is restricted Big Nation has an advantage .



But in 21st century both these conditions will vanish , hence chances of Smaller nations succeeding will increase.
The US continues to benefit from its scale. In other countries, though, the advantages of bigness have waned. Big countries have a leg-up when defence is the top public-spending priority (because they can afford more of it) and when trade is restricted (because big nations have large internal markets). But neither of those conditions holds now. In fact, the world has been rebuilt according to small countries’ dreams. “Smallness tends to encourage openness,” Prof Barro wrote, because small states must trade to survive.