Economic Crisis and Industrial Policy

In this paper, we discuss the implications of the financial crisis for industrial policy. We show that despite official discourse, industrial policy has continued to exist during the liberal years of essentially the 1990s, in order to accompany important structural changes firms had to face. The crisis has implied a massive intervention in the economy, States pouring money into markets in order to provide liquidity and rescuing heavily indebted banks. Intervention has been so strong that now the discussion is about the « exit strategy ». This does not mean, however, that industrial policy has entered a new phase of return to direct intervention in markets. In fact, the risk of the crisis is that the important debate about industrial policy that started at the beginning of the years 2000 be put in the back stage. The debate prior to the crisis was on the role of industrial policy as a long-term programme, a vision of industrial development that has to be implemented through political consensus. This important debate must continue after and beyond the crisis.