Public policies and the art of catching up: matching the historical evidence with a multi-country agent-based model

Giovanni Dosi, Andrea Roventini and Emanuele Russo
Additional contact information
Emanuele Russo: Institute of Economics and EMbeDS, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa (Italy)

No 2020-18, Documents de Travail de l'OFCE from Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE)

Abstract: In this paper, we study the effects of industrial policies on international convergence using a multi-country agent-based model which builds upon Dosi et al. (2019b). The model features a group of microfounded economies, with evolving industries, populated by heterogeneous firms that compete in international markets. In each country, technological change is driven by firms’ activities of search and innovation, while aggregate demand formation and distribution follows Keynesian dynamics. Interactions among countries take place via trade flows and international technological imitation. We employ the model to assess the different strategies that laggard countries can adopt to catch up with leaders: market-friendly policies; industrial policies targeting the development of firms’ capabilities and R&D investments, as well as trade restrictions for infant industry protection; protectionist policies focusing on tariffs only. We find that markets cannot do the magic: in absence of government interventions, laggards will continue to fall behind. On the contrary, industrial policies can successfully drive international convergence among leaders and laggards, while protectionism alone is not necessary to support catching up and countries get stuck in a sort of middle-income trap. Finally, in a global trade war, where developed economies impose retaliatory tariffs, both laggards and leaders are worse off and world productivity growth slows down.

Keywords: Endogenous growth; catching up; technology-gaps; industrial policies; agent-based models. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F41 F43 O3 O4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp, nep-hme, nep-ino, nep-int, nep-ore and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/dtravail/OFCEWP2020-18.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Public policies and the art of catching up: matching the historical evidence with a multicountry agent-based model (2021)
Working Paper: Public policies and the art of catching up: matching the historical evidence with a multicountry agent-based model (2020)
Working Paper: Public policies and the art of catching up: matching the historical evidence with a multicountry agent-based model (2020)
Working Paper: Public policies and the art of catching up: matching the historical evidence with a multi-country agent-based model (2020)
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:fce:doctra:2018

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documents de Travail de l'OFCE from Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Francesco Saraceno ().