Technology to solve global problems: an emerging consensus for green industrial policy?

Abstract

Even as most mainstream policy analysts support the idea of active industrial policy, important dissenting voices still question whether government intervention is possible without extreme waste. We suggest that many of today’s debates, which echo debates of the 1970s, need updating to reflect the reality that a lot has been learned about where and how government can pursue effective industrial policy. Central to effective industrial policy is the realization that the more transformative the goals the harder it is to know which policies, technologies and business models will work—and the greater the need for “experimental” approaches to policy that put uncertainty as the centerpiece.