The role of industrial policy: Japan’s experience

Abstract

There are two views on “industrial policy”, negative and positive. Negative views say the market mechanism is the best way to allocate resources efficiently. Thus, government policy with preferential treatment for a specific industry hinders this market force and leads to a misallocation of resources. On the other hand, positive views say that state intervention is necessary since market forces sometimes fail to allocate resources efficiently. Broadly speaking, this is an issue on relationships between the state and the market, or to what extent we can rely on the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith.