The Experience of the Automotive Industry in Industrial Policies of Selected Governments

We shall not define precisely industrial policy other than to note that the cases we intend to examine involve some form of general, integrated, economic policy that, among other things, includes industry-specific measures that have had direct or indirect consequences for other countries through trade or investment links. Many other characteristics, including program integration; abridgment of private business governance, perhaps involving varying degrees of compulsion or subsidy; non-market incentives; and subordination of the market mechanism, may or may not be present in the industrial policies discussed. Very often specific protection of favored industries is a major instrument of industrial policy; nearly always, the other measures employed also create changes in international competitiveness. Not all such factors, or objectives, need be present to constitute industrial policy for our purposes.