The southern European periphery suffered a severe setback in its catching-up process versus Western Europe after the financial crisis with GDP dropping by 10% between 2008 and 2012 and unemployment increasing to 20% for Greece, Portugal and Spain. We analyze first the reason for this setback,...

Multinational production has become increasingly important in recent decades. Countries resort to different industrial policies to influence the geography of this production. In this paper, we focus on a ubiquitous “soft” industrial policy that aims at reducing information barriers -...

This research paper provides a solid historical overview of European industrial policy during the post-WWII era, extending the time horizon up to the 1990s. Our research focus is the EU 15. Unlike previous publications, this paper outlines the most important characteristics and drivers of...

The EU member states of Central Eastern Europe (EU-CEE) have experienced rapid convergence in the decades following their EU accession, and have built up strong export-oriented manufacturing sectors boosted by foreign direct investment inflows. While this growth model has brought many positives,...

This paper develops policy recommendations on the use of cluster-based economic policies and the adoption of a new concept of competitiveness in the context of the new growth path that WWWforEurope aims to outline. A first section discusses summarizes key findings from the previous research...

This policy report stakes a stance on industrial policy in the European Union in the light of the revived interest in the subject and the most pressing challenges ahead. In the current global context these challenges are: (i) to keep pace at the technology frontier with the technologically most...

The aim of this study is to consider the main factors affecting the industrial policy in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) by elucidating the issues such as; the connection between competitiveness and industrial policy, innovation, manufacturing, green growth and environment. The...

In this paper, we analyze and try to measure productive and technological asymmetries between central and peripheral economies in the eurozone. We assess the effects such asymmetries would likely bring about on center-periphery divergence/convergence patterns, and derive some implications as to...

This paper calls for a fresh look at industrial policies in the light of recent trends and developments in the global economy. In particular, five new challenges and their implications for industrial policies are discussed. These have been neglected in the debate on industrial policy and include...

A national-champions-related industrial policy has become (again) en vogue among European politicians. Against this background, our work orders different types of national champions along the industry lifecycle. Different types of locally bound externalities appear along the lifecycle. In a...