Coordination of industrial policy in the European Union

Richard Baldwin and Philippe Martin

No 6/2006, EIB Papers from European Investment Bank, Economics Department

Abstract: Spillovers from national industrial policies can cause helpful or harmful competition among policy makers and helpful or harmful interactions among the targeted industries. As a result, it is not in general possible to say whether industrial policy coordination is good or bad. However, reaching agreement at the EU level on any type of policy - trade policy, monetary policy or industrial policy - is costly in terms of time, information, and political goodwill. The contrast between the vagueness of the benefits of coordination and the surety of the decision-making costs suggests that the EU has no need to set up a new institutional structure for coordinating industrial policy. In the few cases where the merits of coordination are obvious, such as public spending on R&D, they will be obvious to all and ad hoc cooperation will work.

Keywords: industrial policy; goal conflicts; instrument dependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F42 L52 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2006-06-26
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Coordination of Industrial Policy in the European Union (2006)
Working Paper: Coordination of Industrial Policy in the European Union (2006)
Working Paper: Coordination of Industrial Policy in the European Union (2006)
Working Paper: Coordination of Industrial Policy in the European Union (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:eibpap:2006_006

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