Industrial Policy and Competition

Mathias Dewatripont, Philippe Aghion, Ann Harrison and Liqun Du
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Patrick Legros

No 8619, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The economic slowdown in the 70s in Latin America and Japan in the late 90s, generated a growing skepticism about the role of industrial policy in the process of economic development. Yet, new considerations have emerged over the recent period, which invite us to revisit the issue. This paper argues that sectoral state aids tend to foster productivity, productivity growth, and product innovation to a larger extent when it targets more competitive sectors and when it is not concentrated on one or a small number of firms in the sector. Using a theoretical framework in which two firms may choose either to operate in the same "higher-growth" sector or in different, "lower-growth" sector. We use a panel of medium and large Chinese enterprises for the period 1998 through 2007 to test for complementarity between competition and industrial policy. A main implication from our analysis is that the debate on industrial policy should no longer be for or against having such a policy. As it turns out, sectoral policies are being implemented in one form or another by a large number of countries worldwide, starting with China. Rather, the issue should be on how to design and govern sectoral policies in order to make them more competition-friendly and therefore more growth-enhancing.

Keywords: Industrial policy; Competition; Application fees; Intellectual property policy; Patent system; Innovation and productivity; Renewal fees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O30 O31 O38 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP8619 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Chapter: Industrial Policy and Competition (2022)
Journal Article: Industrial Policy and Competition (2015)
Working Paper: Industrial policy and competition (2015)
Working Paper: Industrial Policy and Competition (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8619

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP8619

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().