Industrial Policy
The Coevolution of Public and Private Sources of Finance for Important Emerging and Evolving Technologies

Successful industrial policy has relied on public-private sector cooperation in the financing of recent and past technological innovations.

Kenneth I. Carlaw (Author), Richard G. Lipsey (Author)

9781009227483, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 July 2022

75 pages
23 x 15.2 x 0.4 cm, 0.16 kg

Dismissing industrial policy because 'governments cannot pick winners' is counter-productive. This Element studying selected major innovations illustrates the fact that virtually all major new technologies have been developed by a synergetic cooperation between the public and the private sectors, each doing what it can do best. By examining how R&D is financed, rather than where it takes place, the authors show that the role of the public sector is much more pronounced than is often thought. The nature of the cooperation ? who does what ? varies with the nature of each innovation so that simple, one-size-fits-all, rules about what each sector should do are suspect. These results are particularly important because they challenge the scepticism in the United states and elsewhere about the importance of industrial policy, a scepticism that threatens to undermine the long-term, and necessary cooperation, between the public and private sectors in promoting growth-inducing innovations.

1. Introduction
2. Policy Implications Of Two Views Of The Economy
3. Concepts and Definitions
4. Case Studies
5. General Lessons
6. Summary
Appendix: Bell Labs
References.

Subject Areas: Economic growth [KCG], Economics of industrial organisation [KCD]