College Honors Program

Industrial Policy and Innovation in the 21st Century: Policy Lessons for US Strategic Industries from the East Asian Tigers

Date of Creation

5-8-2023

Document Type

Campus Access Only

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Loren Cass

Abstract

The increased interest and discussion in the United States in utilizing “industrial policy” as a means to support highly innovative and strategic industries evokes interest in its return and whether industrial policy can properly incentivize the production of innovative, advanced, and critical products. Drawing on the experiences of economies that are often credited with applying effective industrial policy, Taiwan and South Korea this paper seeks to answer the following question: what government strategies, if any, are most effective in spurring production in highly innovative and strategic sectors in the contemporary economy? Seeking to analyze the intent of proposed industrial policies and assessing the impact of said policies on the semiconductor industry, this paper aims to determine whether some applicable policy “tools” or recommendations can be gathered from the examples of “successful” implementation of industrial policies. The revived interest in industrial policy reignites a recurring debate in political science about the proper place of government in the economy. The reality that nations express interest in forms of increased state intervention in the economy reveals that the supremacy of the neoliberal order may be waning.

Comments

Reader: Stephen Kocs

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