U.S. retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in U.S. biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by U.S. farmers...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how energy policy should respond to the changes in the organisation of energy sector associated with privatisation. The paper begins with a brief review of how energy policy was perceived before the 1973 oil shock, and the lessons learned from...

Widespread concern has been expressed that the costs of reducing environmental pollution in Eastern Europe will divert resources that would otherwise be available for industrial modernization. In fact, apart from a number of severely damaged areas, the general level of exposure to major...

The economic slowdown in the 70s in Latin America and Japan in the late 90s, generated a growing skepticism about the role of industrial policy in the process of economic development. Yet, new considerations have emerged over the recent period, which invite us to revisit the issue. This paper...

This paper examines the rationale for multilateral agreements to limit investment subsidies. The welfare ranking of symmetric multilateral subsidy games is shown to depend on whether or not investment levels are "friendly", raising rival profits in total, and/or strategic complements, raising...

The outcome of technological competition between firms (or countries) depends on the resolution of two forces: the profit incentive and the competitive threat. This is illustrated using a simple duopoly model. This model is then used to analyze two policy issues: subsidizing R & D and...

This Paper describes and analyses the evolution of industrial competitiveness in Sweden and Finland in a long-term perspective. One part of the Paper looks at the foundations for industrial take-off in Sweden, with some focus on the development of institutions for the creation and dissemination...

Empirical evidence strongly suggests that R&D increases a firm’s ‘absorptive capacity’ (its ability to absorb spillovers from other firms) as well as contributing directly to profitability. We explore the theoretical implications of this. We specify a general model of the absorptive...

We evaluate the social welfare loss (WL) that arises in an oligopolistic industry under technological competition and product differentiation. The main novelty of our approach concerns the decomposition of the WL into `dynamic' losses (from too little cost reduction and an inappropriate number...

The purpose of this paper is to suggest how institutions can be created and modified to devise and implement industrial policy in the emerging market economies. Two main issues confronting industrial policy institutions are how to avoid regulatory capture, that is, having those policy-makers...