Industrial Policy; Rates and Directions of Innovation, Structural Transformation; Capabilities; Global Commons

O25; O33; F54; L52

Industrial policy has returned to centre stage after decades of neglect or worse, yet its revival is deeply ambivalent. This chapter argues that effective and desirable industrial policies rests on the alignment of three mutually reinforcing conditions, namely, first, public measures shaping the rates and direction of technological and organizational innovation and imitation; second, a state able to secure and expand its policy space within a shifting international environment, and, last but not least, an overall policy perspective anchored in the protection of global and social commons. Through historical and contemporary examples, we show how such coherence in a few cases has been a necessary condition for successful structural transformation and catching up.