Industrial Policy Group

Adam Smith may have won the intellectual battle of ideas, but mercantilism has survived, and sometimes to good effects, from Dani Rodrik www.nber.org/papers/w34353

🙌🙌

Aghion (et al) have a paper on China, they recognised long ago & before many that the Chinese model departs from the East Asia model in having a Darwinian struggle-to-the-death competition of firms behind a wall of protection. It pairs Schumpeterian growth theory w the economics of industrial policy

The AI capex endgame is approaching The rapid building of excess capacity both extends bubbles and ultimately bursts them

AI infrastructure is surging, but broader US manufacturing investment is slowing.

The risk: an AI boom that enriches tech firms more than people. A smart industrial policy will translate AI’s surge into quality jobs.

An 🎯 piece from @ianrharnett.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/c7b9453e-f...

"Industrial policy can never work" edition X.

"a rise in protectionism after 1932 was inevitable regardless of who was in power, because the 1930s were years of trade destruction everywhere .... Also, to a point, protection worked. In the 1930s on average, higher tariffs were associated with better economic performance"

This gets us thinking about the protectionism of the 1930s. There has been much criticism. But it was a protectionist time. Quoting @kevinhorourke.bsky.social and Cormac Ó Gráda in "The Irish economy during the century after partition" (Economic History Review, 2022) ....

Featuring insightful input from many economists including IPG's @rjuhasz.bsky.social

"U.S. President Donald Trump’s America First economic vision is pushing Canada to follow suit" @theglobeandmail.com article on Canada's turn to industrial policy focused on stimulating domestic demand for products exported to the US.

Highlights from @nathanlane.bsky.social's interview with @visiblehandpod.bsky.social: reflections on qualitative and hard econometric evidence in industrial policy studies, and the external validity of HCI drive successes: spillovers can apply broadly, but South Korea's bureaucracy was crucial. 🙌

In some senses you can see this as a form of industrial policy stimulating the growth of the arts sector, this is great for those who like the arts and those who produce art! Assuming the implementation is good etc. etc. 🎨🎵✒️

Pushed by Trump, Canada enters a new era of economic nationalism The U.S. President’s ‘America First’ economic vision is pushing Ottawa to reach for a Canada First toolkit – one that would have been inconceivable a year ago

Fantastic piece by @theglobeandmail.com on how smaller countries are grappling with the consequences of America First! 🙌🙌https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/economy/article-trump-america-first-canada-economic-nationalism/

Our co-founder @nathanlane.bsky.social featured on @visiblehandpod.bsky.social for a fascinating conversation on South Korea's Industrial Policy! 🙌

Also see on our media page! krill-armadillo-z783.squarespace.com/media

조선비즈가 만드는 프리미엄 경제 주간지 - 이코노미조선 경제경영계의 오피니언 리더들에게 유익한 정보와 인사이트를 제공합니다

IPG's @nathanlane.bsky.social spoke to EconomyChosun on the South Korea Petrochemicals industry in light of the recent government industrial restructuring plan. Great insights. Industrial policy in managing challenging times, the importance of involving companies, setting realistic expectations. 🙌

This is very interesting!

Reflections:
1. The rhetoric and justifications for industrial policy are often far from straightforward correcting of market failures
2. The US example uses an ownership stake as a form of industrial policy as they have recently done with Intel: there is much more to learn about this form of IP.

Two events this week in Industrial Policy practice:
1. Keir Starmer's Labour Party Conference speech places industrial policy as central to "national renewal" 💫
2. The US government bought a 5% equity stake in Lithium Americas aiming to secure supply chains for batteries and EVs 🔋

Effective context engineering for AI agents Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

Great guide to context engineering from the Anthropic team www.anthropic.com/engineering/... @anthropic.com

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. - YouTube

From EVs to batteries to heat pumps and more, clean technology is transforming the economics and geopolitics of energy.

Take a crash course in electrotech with these episodes from Energi Media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC6ToNSeerE&list=PL0nvJ0fD_HvCBDfjyv88jVS07N0Bljhcb

We’re super excited to welcome Katharina Erhardt as the new Head of our Industrial Policy Lab—a joint project with @zew.de & @delorsberlin.bsky.social.
In a joint professorship with @hhu.de / @dice.hhu.de, Katharina will also further strengthen our Research Center Trade 👋!

Very interesting work by @lowyinstitute.bsky.social. Ambitious green industrial policy goals are exciting, but we agree success requires more. The institutions tasked with policy design and implementation must have the capacity and incentives to deliver.

China Now Has More Factory Robots Than the Rest of the World Combined China’s robot army is reshaping the world as we know it.

"Chinese factories installed nearly 300,000 new industrial robots last year alone ... the United States, the world’s largest economy, installed a mere 34,000."

China has an industrial policy. The US has whatever Trump sees a story about on Fox News.

www.zmescience.com/science/chin...

Australia emerges as quantum computing player with role in Microsoft chip Advances in the technology have been made possible by sustained government funding since the 1990s

Australian government industrial policy around quantum computing includes $610m in PsiQuantum, $13m Quantum Australia Fund, and investments by National Reconstruction Fund, reports
@nicfildes.ft.com .
www.ft.com/content/3bac...

The murky economics of the data-centre investment boom How similar is it to the 1990s telecoms bubble?

The strength of demand for generative AI may be the most critical factor determining whether an infrastructure boom ends in a bust. But three aspects add to the uncertainty

Carbon copy: How Europe can narrow the economic intelligence gap with China China is scooping up supply chain information as part of its trade restrictions. Europe lags behind in economic intelligence, but there is a way to start closing this gap with a low-cost…

China is scooping up supply chain information as part of its trade restrictions. Europe lags behind in economic intelligence, but there is a way to start closing this gap with a low-cost, low-bureaucracy, high-impact step, writes @jankaoertel.bsky.social @ecfrasia.bsky.social
https://bit.ly/4mCDg6p

🌐 From the first web page created in 1991… to 1 trillion web pages archived today.

Every meme, blog, tweet & vanished site is part of our shared story. This is our collective memory. And it’s being saved.

Join in our celebration this October: blog.archive.org/trillion/

#Wayback1T #WaybackMachine

What the geoeconomic turn in decarbonization means for policymakers For he majority of its history, decarbonization policy focused on distributing the burden of climate change mitigation. Recently, however, decarbonization has a competitive turn, BESI Climate lead…

In a recent @nature.com perspective article, @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social professor @jonasmeckling.bsky.social traces the rise of geoeconomic competition in decarbonization policy and spells out its implications for policymakers. besi.berkeley.edu/what-the-geo...

Building for the Future: How Industrial Policy Can Strengthen Canada’s Economy and Sovereignty - IRPP A report from the IRPP shows how a smart industrial policy strategy can help Canadian governments address unprecedented challenges.

In Building for the Future: How Industrial Policy Can Strengthen Canada’s Economy & Sovereignty, we highlight removing systemic barriers & creating tools like an Indigenous development bank to unlock opportunities & strengthen sovereignty.

📖 Read the full recommendations: irpp.org/research-stu...