UK Competitiveness Policyvs. Japanese Industrial Policy
探讨英国竞争力政策与日本产业政策的异同，澄清两者定义，并质疑日本产业政策是否真能解释其经济成功。
It is often claimed that Japanese ‘industrial policy’ targeted high growth or high productivity growth sectors (see, inter alia, Johnson, 1982; Carliner, 1986; Nester, 1991; Tyson, 1992). It is then argued that because both the targeted industries and the Japanese economy have prospered, it follows that Japanese industrial policy must have been successful. Hence, Britain, and other advanced nations, either are justified in emulating, or should hasten to follow, the Japanese example. This raises the question of whether the United Kingdom's ‘competitiveness policy’ is the appropriate response or is a completely different animal. The purpose of this paper is to explore the main areas in contention, but before doing so it is important to be clear about what one means by industrial and competitiveness policies. In the wider literature (see Coates, 1996 for a comprehensive coverage), industrial policy embraces all acts and policies of the state in relation to industry, be they economic, social or environmental. No wonder, within that context, ‘an actual definition of industrial policy may be as difficult to formulate as it is prevalent in practice … you know it when you see it, but you can't define it’ (Audretsch, 1989, p. 10). Indeed, it has been described as more a state of mind than a self‐explanatory prescription for action, yet, ‘like the elephant, while difficult to define, it is unmistakable when encountered’ (Nevin, 1990, p. 132).