Industrial policy in Italy and Germany: yet another look

Abstract

Italy, like most European countries, has experienced stagnant GDP growth in the past years. In a recent paper, Lucchese and Nascia (Industrial Policy and technology in Italy, 2016) argue that the decline in the Italian industry could be traced back to the financial and the Euro crises in 2007/08, and is mainly caused by a fall of domestic demand, which itself is rooted in an austerity policy. The authors argue for a paradigm shift in innovation and industry policy away from the horizontal European approach to a more vertically oriented approach led at the national level. In this paper we try to contribute to this discussion by providing another look at the data which reveals a different cause of the loss of competitiveness. In contrast to Lucchese et al., we argue for a more disaggregated level of industrial and innovation policies to foster and improve sunrise sectors and regions. We underpin our arguments with examples from Germany, which recovered from the ''Sick man of Europe'' a decade ago and has emerged as one of the most competitive countries.Keywords Public innovation policy Á New venture creation Á Knowledge spillovers Á European integrationWe are grateful for critical comments from Stefano Paleari an anonymous referee and the editors of this volume. All remaining errors are of course ours.

Why Triple Helix governance is useful to dual apprenticeship systems

“…These skilled craftsmen played a crucial role in initiating the Industrial Revolution (Meisenzahl and Mokyr, 2011). Today, the apprenticeship system should be considered as an element of the innovation system and a factor of competitiveness (Audretsch and Lehmann, 2016). The recent revival of interest in apprenticeship is attributable to a variety of factors: apprenticeship is an alternative educational pathway to the labour market, as it offers practical training to those who otherwise might not obtain other substantial educational or academic credentials.…”

Culture, the missing link in value creation and governance in knowledge‐intensive institutions?

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“…Academic responses to problematic results in studies of KIOs typically call for a nuancing of approach based on subdivision or categorisation of the knowledge fields, or of the types of KIO involved (Audretsch & Lehmann, ) or the geographical clusters to which they belong (Lehmann & Menter, ). Blackler has taken a different approach by creating a grid of types of challenge that knowledge addresses, and he is able to link these to familiar organisational forms (Blackler, ).…”

Smart finance for smart places to foster new venture creation

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“…Our findings also shed some light on the future development of cities and regions. While inequality across countries and nations is diminishing, inequality across regions and cities within countries is increasing, leading to sunset and sunrise regions (Audretsch and Lehmann, 2016b). Following a vicious circle, attractive places select creative people which foster and spur new venture creation.…”