From Industrial Policy to Innovation Policy: Japan's Pursuit of Competitive Advantage*

Japan faces significant challenges in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship. Attempts to formally model past industrial policy interventions uniformly uncover little, if any, positive impact on productivity, growth, or welfare. The evidence indicates that most resource flows went to large, politically influential “backwards” sectors, suggesting that political economy considerations may be central to the apparent ineffectiveness of Japanese industrial policy. Rather than traditional industrial or science and technology policy, financial and labor market reforms appear more promising. As a group, Japan's industrial firms are competitive relative to their foreign counterparts. Where Japan falls behind is in the heavily regulated service sector. The problems appear to be due less to a lack of industrial policy than to an excess of regulation. Japan may have more to gain through restructuring the lagging service sector than by expending resources in pursuit of marginal gains in the industrial sector.     

Homo Oeconomicus Returns: Neoliberalism,Socio-Political Uncertainty and Economic Policy

The aim of this paper is to discuss how neoliberal policy is changing the way people conceive of the economy and of society. After a brief outline of the main features of neoliberal policies, it argues that neoliberalism does not consist in a mere set of wrong economic theories or in the plain reflection of vested interests. It is a full-fledged view of how society should be organized. The paper then argues that these policies and the ideology that backs them up determine major institutional changes which affect economic, social and polity-related variables but also the general understanding that peo-ple have of the economy and of society. More specifically, it enhances uncertainty about one’s future and favors a non-solidaristic view of social relations. These changes tend to prejudge the effectiveness of employment policies and to reinforce the neolib-eral consensus. The conclusion is that it is not possible to conceive of an appropriate macroeconomic policy unless institutional changes are taken into account that trans-cend macroeconomics as such and re-establish the social underpinnings for that policy. These include changes in how the economy is coordinated but also changes in the bar-gaining power of workers and citizens relative to business.     

Sovereign Debt Management and the Transformation from Keynesian to Neoliberal Monetary Governance in Britain

ABSTRACT

Private financial markets are central to the implementation of monetary governance. This necessary integration of public and private finance means the way states govern must evolve with developments in financial markets. This article examines how the rise of liability management underpinned a shift to market-based banking and transformed the operation of monetary policy in Britain. It assesses the period of reform between 1967 and 1981 and what this meant for monetary governance. Political economy literature depicts this period as a shift to depoliticised, deregulated governance with public authority giving way to market power. This paper challenges this perspective on the grounds that it misconstrues the problem policymakers faced. The shift from Keynesian to neoliberal monetary governance came in response to the change in banking practice with the rise of liability management and a parallel money market. This underpinned an explosion of credit creation that the old system of monetary policy, organised around the Base Rate and ‘primary’ discount market could not fix. As a result, the monetary authorities had to render this new financial environment governable. The period should therefore be reassessed in terms of the capacities the state attempted to construct to conduct monetary governance.     

Industrial Policy and Islamic Finance

Debates on industrial policy have typically focused on interventions in the ‘real’ sector to facilitate the transformation of a resources-based economy to one that is based on manufacturing. Although the financial sector has always figured strongly in these discussions, its development, or rather repression, is almost always considered in the context of serving the ‘real’ sector. In contrast, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on government policies to develop financial sectors into independent and internationally competitive sources of economic growth on their own right through an analysis of the development of Islamic finance in Malaysia. The paper argues that the emergence of Islamic finance in Malaysia, and the country's evolution into a key player of the sector in the global market, can be attributed to developmental efforts or industrial policies adopted by the government. The case of Islamic finance in Malaysia suggests the continuing relevance of industrial policy for developmental purposes. More importantly, it demonstrates that developing countries can chart a path towards services-led growth, the next frontier in economic development.     

产业政策、产业结构与经济增长的实证研究

产业政策和经济增长之间存在密切联系,通过我国产业政策与经济增长的结构分析,证实了我国产业政策发展存在三个阶段,证明了产业政策通过改变产业结构从而影响经济增长。通过产业结构偏离度、排放系数和产业人均收入指标的研究,表明我国结构调整需要寻找合理的平衡,得出了产业政策和经济增长是相辅相成、不可分割的一体两面的结论。     

From Mad to Mindful: Corporate Control Through Corporate Spirituality

Abstract:

Capitalism has always and will always depend on a compliant workforce. Maintaining the delicate balance between a worker who is just “not-unhappy” enough or desperate enough to continue working while also cutting costs to the bone presents a continuous challenge for business interests. This pursuit to squeeze more productivity out of workers while also managing worker discontent in the cheapest way possible has spawned innovations in labor management which reflect the institutional milieu of the respective time. This research focuses on those labor management techniques particular to neoliberalism and the ways in which cultural movements and trends of the neoliberal period are mined and deployed as yet another useful resource in the disciplining of workers. Corporate mindfulness is the favorite labor management technique of the neoliberal period. The formalized packaging of corporate mindfulness began in the late 1970s but was built on a long tradition of attempts to hack the minds and mindsets of workers. Corporate mindfulness reinforces neoliberalism through the corporate individual, the transformation of the self of the corporate individual, and the creation of the corporation as a community and means of social connection for the corporate individual.     

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.     

Post-2008 British Industrial Policy and Constructivist Political Economy: New Directions and New Tensions

The article serves to introduce a number of recent changes in the practices and rationale of British industrial policy since 2008. I observe a shift towards a stronger role for the government and for agencies of industrial policy in the provision of industrial finance, and towards an increasingly discretionary and strategic approach to industrial policy intervention, both of which stand in tension with the neoliberal ‘coordinative discourse’ that continues to structure macroeconomic policy in the post-2008 context. I suggest that this tension is indicative of the emergence of two competing ‘crisis diagnoses’ in government after 2008; one reflecting the neoliberal coordinative discourse that structured economic policymaking prior to 2008, the other at odds with this neoliberal crisis diagnosis. I argue that constructivist analytical frameworks on crisis and political–economic change are insufficiently developed to accommodate these findings. I therefore reflect upon some conceptual and empirical implications that the findings raise for a constructivist analysis of economic policy in the post-2008 context in Britain, before concluding that a more contingent, contested and, crucially, incomplete process of re-alignment in the ideas that structure economic policymaking is underway in Britain than is generally acknowledged.     

产业政策创新促进山西经济持续发展

能源原材料定价方式的市场化及其相应的价格变化是2000以来山西经济发展水平相对上升的主要原因.这种经济增长方式既不具有可控性也不具有可持续性,因而,是非常脆弱的.在创新能力与资本积累都没有明显改善的条件下,依靠市场的力量来实现山西经济增长方式的调整是不现实的.在这种情况下,必须加强政府能动性的作用.     

产业政策失效原因的博弈分析

产业政策是产业结构调整中的重点,产业政策的失效降低了政府宏观调控的效果。从产业结构调整涉及多个经济利益主体行为出发,通过分析地方政府与中央政府之间、地方政府与地方政府之间的产业结构调整博弈模型,可知产业政策失效的主要原因包括:在缺乏产业发展中利益协调机制的前提下,地区利益障碍的存在;政府行为有限性的约束;经济改革的不彻底;产业政策的时效差别影响。     

经济地理、新经济地理、产业政策与文化产业集聚:基于省级空间面板模型的分析

笔者基于新经济地理学分析框架,采用空间面板计量模型,利用1999年～2008年省级相关数据,对中国文化产业集聚影响因素及其溢出效应进行了实证分析。结果表明:沿海区位和文化资源禀赋优势促进了文化产业集聚;人力资本、交通通信、文化消费的提高也有利于文化产业集聚;政府财政支持对文化产业集聚有正面影响;文化产业集聚存在空间正溢出效应。     

Neoliberal growth models,monetary union and the Euro crisis. A post-Keynesian perspective

The paper offers an account of the Euro crisis based on post-Keynesian monetary theory and its typology of demand regimes. Neoliberalism has transformed social and financial relations in Europe but it has not given rise to a sustained profit-led growth process. Instead, growth has relied either on financial bubbles and rising household debt (‘debt-driven growth’) or on net exports (‘export-driven growth’). In Europe the financial crisis has been amplified by an economic policy architecture (the Stability and Growth Pact) that aimed at restricting the role of fiscal policy and monetary policy. This neoliberal economic policy regime in conjunction with the separation of monetary and fiscal spheres has turned the financial crisis of 2007 into a sovereign debt crisis in southern Europe.     

Industrial Policy and Firm Heterogeneity

Our concern in this paper is with firm-specific industrial policy. When R&D subsidies or taxes are differentiated among firms, the question arises as to which firms in an industry should receive such support. We analyze a situation where firms differ in their R&D technologies in two distinct ways: in the costs of performing R&D activities and in the output obtained from such activities. We find that the optimal firm-specific industrial policy is affected differently by the two sources of firm heterogeneity. Furthermore, a change in a firm's R&D productivity has an ambiguous effect on the optimal policy towards the firm.
JEL classification: O 31; L 52; F 13     

Chaebol and Industrial Policy in Korea

Although the degree of sectoral targeting changed dramatically from the 1960s to the 1970s and then from the 1980s onward, Korea maintained an outward‐oriented, bottom‐up, and integrated approach to industrial policy, relying on close public–private consultation and international benchmarking. The government and the chaebol systematically studied what had to be done to fill the missing links in the domestic value chain and move up the quality ladder, through technology acquisition, human resource development, and construction of optimal‐scale plants aimed for the global market. As the capacity of the private sector increased and sectoral targeting became a more difficult proposition, Korea shifted to a more sector‐neutral approach, which provided support for industry rationalization and R&D regardless of sectors. This was in line with a larger shift from industrial policy to competition and corporate governance policy, starting with the enactment of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act in 1980.     

Economic Policy and the Progressive Idea

Abstract

Recent events in different countries suggest that institutional change is discontinuous and may lead to abrupt change. A specific case is shifts in social consensus. The article focuses on the latter. It argues that people make sense of their lives in relation to how they situate themselves within society. Their identities depend on the degree to which they are capable consciously to conduct their lives. Undesired economic change may disrupt previous identities and cause cognitive dissonance. At the collective level, it may trigger in-group versus out-group dynamics that provide a fictitious identity and either reinforce the status quo or suddenly subvert it.

Neoliberalism caused such undesired changes. A progressive alternative cannot rely just on convincing people that a change in conventional economic measures is desirable. It requires a recovery of people’s active and conscious self-identification. This involves overcoming their forced adaptation to the status quo through participation and collective action     

高技术制造业的技术创新、产业升级与产业韧性

基于1997—2019年中国高技术制造业时序数据,在理论分析的基础上,运用最小二乘法、工具变量两阶段最小二乘法、中介效应和门槛效应模型对技术创新、产业升级如何影响产业韧性进行了实证研究。研究发现：技术创新对高技术制造业韧性具有正向效应,且对冲击韧性的正向效应更强;从中介效应角度,产业升级在技术创新对产业韧性的正向影响中发挥中介效应,存在技术创新通过推进产业升级,进而增强产业韧性的间接效应,且对断裂韧性发挥的中介效应强于冲击韧性;从门槛效应角度,产业韧性能够做为门槛变量,在技术创新、产业升级对产业韧性的促进作用中发挥门槛效应,高产业韧性水平下,技术创新、产业升级对产业韧性的正向促进作用增强。研究结论为高技术制造业增强产业韧性水平,推进制造强国建设提供政策启示。     

外商直接投资对我国产业结构提升的实效分析

鉴于外商直接投资的重大的经济意义和对市场影响力的增强,本文主要就外商直接投资对我国产业结构提升的效应做了较为具体的实效分析,首先,简单阐述了外商直接投资与产业结构的基本理论;然后对外商直接投资的产业分布特征以及对我国产业所产生的经济实效进行了具体分析;最后依据全文分析结果就如何引导和控制好外商直接投资,发挥其积极的产业效应提出相关的产业发展政策建议。     

嵌入性、社会网络与产业集群--一个新经济社会学的视角

由对运输成本、企业间投入产出关系的关注转向对集群相关经济制度、社会文化环境的分析,是近年来产业集群研究的一个重要特点(stroper,1997)。这一转向的直接缘由在于西方新经济社会学的兴起及其嵌入性、社会网络、社会资本等核心概念的提出与发展。笔者试图从这一学科的基本理论主张出发,结合其核心概念的阐述,对产业集群的竞争优势、创新与锁定效应等问题做出新的、系统性理论解释。     

我国可持续发展的环境政策与产业生态化

可持续发展是当今世界最受关注的问题之一,对于人口、资源和环境形势都很严峻的中国而言,可持续发展战略下的环境政策尤为重要。中国是一个发展中的后起工业化国家,在生态环境领域存在着一些问题,必须采取相应的对策。产业生态化是实施可持续发展战略的关键。鉴于我国现行环境政策的不足,从产业生态化的角度来考虑和制订符合我国国情的环境政策是重要的尝试。     

经济转型、市场竞争与中国产业集中

中国产业组织结构的演变,大体经历了改革开放初期的逆集中化和20世纪80年代中后期以来的集中化两个阶段。这种演变过程是与中国经济的转型和市场竞争的加剧联系在一起的。在这种经济转型的过程中,领先市场竞争形成的“优胜劣汰”机制,将有利于促进产业的集中化过程。为提高中国产业的集中度,增强企业国际竞争能力,今后国家产业组织政策应改变过去那种过多采用行政干预的办法,逐步转变为以促进有效竞争为基本目标的竞争性政策为中心。