The calls for rebalancing in the UK economy following the credit crisis and the recession opened a window of opportunity to have a realistic conversation about industrial policy again in developed economies. In some senses it is a proxy conversation for the role of the state and whether when the benefits of globalisation go to other countries our rhetoric around openess changes, but that's a longer post.
As a first brick in the wall, I recently had a piece in the Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade which looks at rationales for industrial policy based on industry maturity (click here for the article). The main argument is that industrial policy work has been contained within development economics for the past thirty years which has led to the assumption that industrial policy is all about catch up. However, if you consider an industry to have a lifecycle at the global level and within a country, when you compare the two you can see that a country could be leading or lagging in an industry. And crucially there may be strong reasons to intervene either to preference a transition or to hold on to a lead.
Here's hoping that a realistic conversation on industrial development can continue!
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