The literature on economic competitiveness, both at the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels, was not born by accident. It is derived from deep analytical and reflective work on what we refer to as the economy. In a nutshell, this literature has at its core the understanding that the economy is a conglomeration of value chains. A value chain is simply a system of activities that captures how an outcome (whether a product or service) is derived so that the end user can ultimately acquire it to satisfy his or her utility function.