ABSTRACT
Industrial policy (IP) is back on the policy agenda of many countries with concerns over national competitiveness in a globalised world. 1 In academic circles, debates over the role of IP never ceased, despite from the 1980s onwards the prevailing policy consensus on the need for a dominant role for markets in determining resource allocation. This chapter commences with a discussion of different versions of IP. It then considers the role these envisage for governments, since the newer version of IP has far greater focus on the role of the private sector. A third section has a classification of IP and a fourth links IP with economic theory. A fifth section considers examples of IP in recent years and a sixth looks at several country cases. A final section concludes.
