Don't forget the compounding effect. Say, one country (or city or community) decides to invest their efforts into area X (e.g. clock making in Switzerland). They do it and become better and better. As long as they keep doing that they can become #1 in the world. Regardless of any reasons "why them".

There's no reason Netherlands are better at chip lithography except that they're doing it (Dutch agriculture success can be attributed to good soils/climate/geolocation, but not chips). There's no reason Hollywood is better at filmmaking. Kinda chaos theory -- small changes to initial state leads to huge changes in the later outcomes.