A political economy approach to endogenous industrial policies

This paper uses a political economy perspective to study the endogenous formation of economic policies and its interplay with political institutions. This paper provides a novel view that both the institutions and economic development status are essential factors in endogenously determining economic policies. The model aims to explain both the differences in the degree of adopting industrial policies as well as the differences in the types of industrial policies being implemented. Using a concise framework with two country-specific characteristics, the baseline model can capture three main types of industrial policy platforms of interest. In a country where voters’ political awareness is positively skewed and press freedom is relatively low, pro-heavy industry policies would be present most of the time; South Korea is representative of this type of countries. In a country where voters’ political awareness is positively skewed and press freedom is relatively high, there is usually an active industrial policy, though the target of the policy changes over time. Specifically, the policy is favoring the industry of which the industry-specific TFP is relatively high; Japan is representative of this type of countries. In a country where voters’ political awareness is negatively skewed and press freedom is relatively high, there is usually no active industrial policy; the U.S. is representative of this type of countries.     

Efficiency And Equity Aspects Of The

The joint impact of long term structural features, on the one hand, and of recent market-oriented reforms in the macroeconomic incentive regime, on the other, are inducing major changes in social and production organization throughout the Latin American region. The new economic model is quite different in structure and performance from the one Latin American countries exhibited during the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) period. Non tradable activities such as telecommunications, energy or transport services, natural resource processing industries producing low value added industrial ‘commodities’ and assembly industries (‘maquiladoras’), producing computers, TV and Video sets and garments for the US market, together with the vehicle industry, which has managed to receive preferential treatment from the part of the various governments in the region, have performed much better than average, both in terms of labor productivity growth as well as in terms of ‘catching up’ with the international productivity frontier. Contrary to the above, unskilled labor, and engineering and knowledge intensive industries, have performed worse than average and are ‘falling behind’ international standards. Domestic subsidiaries of multinational corporations and large local conglomerates are gaining ground within GDP, while SMEs and public enterprises have been losing it. The paper examines some of the macro-to- micro relations underlying the above mentioned process of structural transformation and the interdependency between economic, technological and institutional forces inducing it. It argues that ‘main stream’ economics fails adequately to capture the role played by such interdependencies and offers a policy advice which can not deal with the new efficiency and equity problems resulting from recent structural changes.     

INDUSTRIAL POLICY IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

The idea of industrial policy is to cure perceived market failures of various sorts. This also has been the meat of development economics for decades. Moreover, strong similarities exist between the specific goals of industrial policy advocates for developed countries and goals of governments in less developed countries. Both groups seek to pick industrial winners, deal with externalities, improve the balance of trade, and attract high-tech industries. Given that markets appear not to operate as well in developing countries as in their developed counterparts, we would expect industrial policy to work particularly well in LDCs since many important market failures should be relatively easy to identify and the gains from correcting them should be great. Moreover, because LDCs tend to intervene more than their developed counterparts, we would expect them to exhibit particularly strong effects of this intervention. Thus, the experiences of LDCs constitute a well endowed laboratory to study the effects of industrial policies in practice, and to yield lessons relevant for both industrial and developing countries. This paper explores these experiences, and closes with some lessons for the design of sensible industrial strategy.     

The importance of government commitment in attracting firms: A dynamic analysis of tax competition in an agglomeration economy

Agglomeration tendencies of industrial firms significantly affect the nature of tax competition. This paper analyzes tax competition between two countries over an infinite time horizon in an economy with trade costs and internationally mobile industrial firms. Most of the previous studies on tax competition in the ‘new economic geography’ framework employ static models. In this study, two governments dynamically compete with each other to attract firms through their choices of taxes and subsidies. It is shown that the commitment of the governments to their policies is crucial in determining the distribution of firms in the long run. Specifically, if governments find each others׳ tax policies credible, then one country will attract all the firms when trade costs are low enough to make agglomeration forces dominant. If policies are not credible, both countries may attract an equal share of firms even when trade costs are low, as the lack of commitment by governments acts as a dispersion force.     

科学发展观与产业政策选择

为了追求经济增长而设立的非均衡产业结构安排,虽然带来了较快的经济增长速度,但却损失了劳动力资源的合理配置,损失了应当与经济增长相伴随的就业岗位,也剥夺了一些人的公平发展机会。科学发展观的内涵是追求以人为本、机会公平和整个社会的可持续发展。新时期的产业结构调整政策的制定,应当充分体现科学发展观的内在要求,在注重发展高科技产业的同时,发展具有比较优势的劳动密集型产业、循环经济、节能、少污染产业。     

区域经济圈创业政策比较分析及启示

基于内容分析法对珠三角经济圈、长三角经济圈和山东半岛蓝色经济区的创业扶持政策体系进行比较研究。结果表明：三大经济圈创业扶持政策体系的重点扶持产业和重点政策工具区域化特征显著,但均出现了重供给和环境类扶持政策、轻需求类扶持政策的结构失衡问题,其中山东半岛蓝色经济区政策结构失衡问题尤为突出,且其在整个政策扶持链中存在较多薄弱环节。根据三大经济圈创业扶持政策体系比较分析结果,结合山东半岛蓝色经济区优势和特点,提出了政策优化和改进建议。研究结论可为中国区域出台创业扶持政策提供借鉴。     

Assessing structural change: the case of Austria

In recent years in many OECD countries the view became popular that a country has a healthy industrial structure if it has a high share of high-tech industries and a low share of traditional industries like textiles and steel. Therefore, industrial policy in these countries introduces programmes for reallocating from traditional sectors to high-tech sectors in order to increase national welfare. This paper questions this view by taking into account recent insights of international trade theory and shows, in the case of Austria, why conventional concepts of measuring and assessing structural change (used, e.g. by the OECD) are misleading and thus lead to wrong conclusions in the assessment whether structural adjustment has gone in the ‘right’ direction. More specifically, the ‘popular’ criteria ‘share and shift’, ‘high-tech versus traditional products’, and ‘R & D intensity’ are discussed and an alternative interpretation suggested by economic theory is given. Additionally, the paper illustrates the alternatie interpretation of these popular criteria on the example of the textile industry which, as a traditional consumer goods industry, managed to modernize largely without R & D of its own and was able to meet international competition successfully.     

中国碳减排目标的可达性:能源政策与经济发展

2009年11月,中国国务院宣布到2020年,在2005年的基础之上将碳排放强度,即单位GDP二氧化碳排放量降低40%～45%。这一目标能否达成对于中国以及全球抵御气候变化都将产生深刻影响。分析我国能源消耗和经济发展的历史和现状,系统梳理到目前为止我国所制定和实施的能源政策,并结合情景分析预测了我国能否达到既定的碳排放强度削减目标。结果表明,我国实现减排目标是乐观的,但仍需要有针对性的政策导向。最后根据以上分析,对我国下一阶段的能源消耗和经济发展政策提出了相应建议,即加大科技支出,继续淘汰落后产能,推动先进生产技术应用;加大产业结构调整力度,大力发展第三产业;推动能源价格市场化进程。     

The Washington Consensus revisited: a new structural economics perspective

The Washington Consensus reform resulted in economic collapse and stagnation in many transition economies and “lost decades” in other developing countries in 1980s and 1990s. The paper provides a new structural economics perspective of such failures. The Washington Consensus reform failed to recognize that many firms in a transition economy were not viable in an open, competitive market because those industries went against the comparative advantages determined by the economy’s endowment structure. Their survival relied on the government’s protections and subsidies through various interventions and distortions. The Washington Consensus advised the government to focus their reforms on issues related to property rights, corporate governance, government interventions, and other issues that may obstruct a firm’s normal management. Without resolving the firms’ viability problem, such reforms led to the firms’ collapse and an unintended decline and stagnation of the economy in the transition process. This paper suggests that the viability assumption in neoclassical economics be relaxed when analyzing development and transition issues in socialist, transition, and developing economies.     

A Framework for Policy Oriented Innovation Studies in Industrialising Countries

This paper argues that there is increasing need for the integration of policy considerations in the formulation of research questions and in the development of analytical work in policy oriented innovation studies. Despite the fact that Evolutionary and Innovation Studies theories have offered new ways of incorporating policy, little explicitness in this regard has yet been achieved and there is a risk that academic research following the new perspectives will be of little relevance for policy. Rather than a ‘linear process’ starting with empirical research aimed at linking competitiveness and economic performance to technological capabilities (in a comparative perspective and aimed at identifying ‘best practice’) followed by very abstract and un-grounded ‘policy implications' - a new type of link between positive and normative economics in the field is required. Our approach suggests a new structure for policy-oriented and policy-relevant research, i.e. the integration of research on technological change and industrial transformation with research on policy and the development of a conceptual framework for the design and implementation of innovation policies.     

Industrial policy and manufacturing targeting in the US: new methodological tools for strategic policy-making

The economic crisis has pushed several countries to adopt selective industrial policies to promote manufacturing and some selected strategic sectors. Despite this new activism, the process of defining strategic targets risks being carried out with poor rigour on a political level, setting governments up for failure. This paper discusses the notion of strategic sector and proposes a new methodology to increase transparency and effectiveness in the identification of what can be defined as ‘strategic’. Focusing on the analysis of the US manufacturing system, we develop a composite indicator – the Strategic Sector Index (SSI) – to rank manufacturing industries on the basis of their strategic significance. Furthermore, we apply an uncertainty analysis methodology to the SSI to evaluate the robustness of the ranking and to minimise the degree of policy-makers’ discretionality in influencing the results.     

Foreign direct investment under oligopoly: Profit shifting or profit capturing?

In this paper a model of taxation of foreign source corporate income is developed when the output market is not perfectly competitive. Profit shifting policies, similar to those in the new trade literature, are also present in the case of foreign direct investment (FDI). There are, however, important differences to the new trade theory since in case of FDI, (i) corporate taxation and double taxation relief are the policy instruments rather than output or revenue taxes, (ii) countries are not symmetric in the sense that the host country has the first right to tax the multinational's profit and the home country reacts by providing double taxation relief, and (iii) output but not corporate taxation is specific to imperfectly competitive industries. It is argued that (a) variants of a tax credit are analogous to export subsidies, (b) when the home country operates a tax credit system the host country's incentive to capture the multinational's profit is bounded under imperfect competition, (c) when the host country offers a tax holiday the home country should imitate this policy, and (d) in the presence of perfect competitive industries, double taxation relief is a good instrument to target imperfectly competitive industries.     

专利密集型产业再认识：一个新分析框架

利用4次经济普查数据,构建专利密集型产业经济绩效比较优势影响因素分析框架。研究结果表明,在控制区域差异和产业异质性后,相比于非专利密集型产业,专利质量比较优势会显著提升专利密集型产业竞争优势;技术标准是专利密集型产业发展的制高点,技术标准数量优势对专利密集型产业经济比较优势有正向促进作用;相比内资企业,专利密集型产业外资企业的经济比较优势更显著,这主要归功于其较强的专利运营能力和更高的专利质量。据此,提出相关对策建议。     

经济政策不确定性与企业退出决策:理论与实证研究

经济政策影响微观企业经营是现有研究的共识.在已有文献基础上,文章考察了经济政策不确定性对企业退出决策的影响.文章基于一个代表性企业最优退出决策的框架,构建了经济政策不确定性影响企业退出决策作用机制的理论模型,并利用1998?2011年中国工业企业微观数据对理论模型进行了实证检验.研究结果显示,经济政策不确定性通过增加市场预期收益的机制降低了企业的退出概率,即面对高水平的经济政策不确定性时,企业对未来市场形成了良好的预期,倾向于采取理性的"延迟退出"决策.进一步分析发现,企业退出决策的"延迟现象"在不同企业、行业和区域间呈现出异质性,经济政策不确定性更多地延迟了具有优越发展前景的企业、行业及区域的市场退出.从企业方面来看,这一现象在规模小、跨产业经营、出口、政府补贴的企业及创新企业中更加显著;从行业方面来看,这一现象在资金技术密集型的行业及生产率高的行业中更加显著;从区域来看,这一现象在市场化程度高的区域及经济增长快的区域更加显著.可见,政府的经济政策变动,不仅引导了企业制定理性的战略决策,而且激励了优势资源和市场的持续发展.     

地方官员引领产业结构变动

新结构经济学在理论上揭示了发展中国家政府引领产业结构变动的可能性。本文构造了中国省级官员与四位数制造业产业结构变动相匹配的面板数据,系统分析省级官员对辖区产业结构变动的影响,结果发现,在1998—2007年间,平均而言,省委书记省长在短期内能引领辖区产业结构变动;其引领效应随任期增加而下降。本文的发现是相当稳健的,揭示了产业结构变动在短期可以靠官员,在长期主要靠市场。     

Transnational Depoliticisation and Industrial Policy: The European Commission and French Steel (1980–1984)

ABSTRACT

Following the 2008 financial crash, voices have called governments to re-embrace industrial policy and promote industrial development. Such calls presuppose that the past decades witnessed a relative retreat of activist industrial policies. Within international political economy the latter is explained by the limits posed by the structure of global economic governance and globalisation on the state’s interventionist capacities. This article argues that these constraints have enabled states to pursue the transnational depoliticisation of industrial policy and transfer decision-making responsibilities to spheres lying beyond the governmental arena such as transnational institutions. By appealing to supranational economic rules, governments can disclose their own preferences for certain industrial policies and resist pressures to assist declining activities. To substantiate these claims the article proposes an archival investigation of the French government’s management of the steel industry between 1980 and 1984 and its support for a European Commission-led management of restructuring. The findings suggest that the pressures of the Commission played a crucial role in strengthening the government’s effort to implement socially unpopular but economically vital industrial choices.     

Government industrial policy for a healthy world economy

The Japanese concept of “industrial policy” is the subject of this presentation. The central role of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in the formulation of industrial policy for Japan over the past 35 years is reviewed. Several strategic phases are identified: 1945–1952, reconstruction of the economy; 1952–1960, comparative advantage strategy in capital-intensive industries; 1960–1973, transition to an open economy; 1973 to present, positive support policy for promising industries, e.g., subsidies for high-tech sectors and adjustive policy for declining industries (e.g., disposing of excess capacity in the textile sector). The advantages of National industrial policies for the world economy are indicated.     

新结构经济学为经济发展开出正确药方了吗？——一个主体分析和过程视角的考察

经济持续发展历来是各个国家追求的主要目标之一,其中围绕政府干预以及如何消除这一外生变量成为经济增长和发展理论的焦点。认为不应再执著于政府是否应当发挥作用,而应沿着另一个方向,即政府在经济发展过程发挥何种作用,以及如何发挥作用进行探索。新结构经济学即是在此思路下,从比较优势和产业结构变迁的微观角度提供了一种经济动态发展的分析框架,并为政府干预制订了增长甄别和因势利导的可操作性步骤。但从主体分析和过程视角出发,新结构经济学仍然面临将政府变量内生化的困境。     

评林毅夫的新结构经济学：理论、政策和难点

近年,林毅夫提出了新结构经济学,据说有可能是发展经济学继结构主义和华盛顿共识之后的第三波理论浪潮的重要流派。新结构经济学认为一个经济体的经济结构内生于它的要素禀赋结构,持续的经济发展是由要素禀赋的变化和持续的技术创新推动的。新结构经济学得出了与旧结构经济学不同的理论结论：市场在资源配置中发挥核心作用,把进口替代看做是发展中国家在发展过程中爬升产业阶梯的自然现象;政府发挥积极作用。新结构经济学在财政政策、货币政策、金融发展、外国资本、贸易政策、人类发展方面得出了一些新的政策启示,但是新结构经济学也存在着一些理论难点。     

美日欧发展高新技术产业的比较研究

在全球竞争目益激烈的背景下,美日欧不断调整完善科技创新战略,加强重点领域研发,大力发展高新技术产业,培育新的经济增长点,以便在竞争中占据有利地位。通过从九大方面,包括产业发展战略模式、产业发展重点领域、法律保障、科技管理体制、科技投入、产学研合作模式、政府在科技成果转化和商业化中的作用、技术创新财税支持政策、科技人才政策等,对美日欧发展高新技术产业进行分析和比较．以期了解美日欧在发展高新技术产业中的做法和特点,使我国在发展高新技术产业中有所借鉴。