Thursday, February 25, 2021

Andrew Batson — The definitive book on China’s industrial policy is also free

Once an obscure topic, China’s industrial policy now gets attention from heads of state. The entire US-China trade war waged by the Trump administration was, in formal legal terms any way, justified as a response to distorting industrial policy. Understanding industrial policy seems to be a requirement for participating in current intellectual debates about China.

Thankfully, Barry Naughton has written a short and highly readable book, The Rise of China’s Industrial Policy, 1978 to 2020, that explains its history and functioning. Even better, it is available as a free PDF download from the Centro de Estudios China-México at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Based on a series of lectures, the book has a conversational tone and jargon-free style that is rare for this subject matter, a topic both highly technical and highly politicized....
Andrew Batson's Blog

1 comment:

Andrew Anderson said...

The US doesn't need an industrial policy besides generous infrastructure spending.

What it does need is to quit paying foreigners positive* yields and interest (on foreign bank reserves at the Fed) since that constitutes welfare proportional to account balance.

Also, the foreign ownership of US land should be outlawed.

Then foreigners will have less illegitimate reason to export to the US.

*Actually, non-NEGATIVE given overhead costs.