Empty Economics in the Case for Industrial Policy
Empty Economics in the Case for Industrial Policy
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产业政策中的空洞经济学
DOI：
10.1111/j.1467-9701.1984.tb00277.x
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发表时间：
1984
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Brian Hindley
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Brian Hindley
“积极的产业政策”的UPPORT目前在美国和西欧都很普遍。然而，这种政策在行动方面可能意味着什么，往往很难发现。经过仔细研究，这一概念的不同支持者对政策的适当目标持有不同的、往往是相互矛盾的想法。在此仅举一个例子，“日出”产业和“日落”产业的人，对于产业政策的正确方向，通常有着非常不同的看法。然而，要认真评估应该把更多的资源用于连贯的产业政策的建议，就需要回答为什么需要这样一种政策以及它应该做什么的问题。此外，这些问题还涉及原则问题。作为一个实际的政治问题，接受一些公司和行业将通过政治程序获得援助是一回事。作为原则问题接受他们应该以这种方式获得援助（即使这种援助被称为“重组”或“振兴”）是另一回事。”作为一个实际的政治问题，某某行业将得到帮助“是一个基于对政治进程运作的一些假设的声明。关于应该援助某个行业的建议，很可能是基于对政治过程和参与者目标的一套非常不同的假设，而且，它通常会增加另一套关于通过市场做出的选择的有效性的假设。然而，事实是，“产业政策”一词的精确性完全是虚假的。在过去的10年或15年里，这个词已经成为一个混合词，用来指直接影响经济生产结构的广泛的政府行为。许多活动的合成日期早于该术语和它的使用表明更多的连贯性之间比事实
UPPORT for ‘an active industrial policy’is currently widespread in both the United States and Western Europe. What such a policy might mean in terms of action, however, is often difficult to discover. Different proponents of the notion turn out to hold, on closer examination, different and often contradictory ideas on the appropriate targets for the policy. To cite only one cleavage, those associated with ‘sunrise’industries typically have very different ideas about the appropriate direction of industrial policy from those associated with ‘sunset’industries.Nevertheless, serious assessment of the proposal that more resources should be devoted to a coherent industrial policy requires answers to the questions of why such a policy is needed and what it ought to be doing. Moreover, these questions raise issues of principle. To accept as a matter of practical politics that some firms and industries will receive assistance through the political process is one thing. It is quite another thing to accept as a matter of principle that they ought to be assisted in that way (even if the assistance is called ‘restructuring’or ‘revitalisation’).‘As a matter of practical politics such-and-such an industry will be assisted’is a statement based on a number of suppositions about the working of the political process. The suggestion that such-and-such an industry ought to be assisted is likely to be based on a very different set of suppositions about the political process and the objectives of participants in it. Moreover, it will typically add yet another set regarding the validity of choices made through the market. Yet the truth is that the term ‘industrial policy’has an entirely spurious sound of precision. Over the past ten or fifteen years, the term has become a portmanteau catchword for that broad range of governmental actions which directly affect the structure of production in an economy. Many of the activities in the portmanteau pre-date the term and its use suggests more coherence among them than in fact