Recent research highlights the considerable potential of industrial policy to support structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the importance of the state in industrial policy, this paper considers the implications for these discussions of recent work on state fragility. It argues...

Tanzania ranks among the leading stars of the 'African growth miracle', but a sector that has been largely absent from the Tanzania success story is industry. Although growth of manufacturing has outpaced economic growth over the past decade, relative to international norms and its ambitious...

This paper argues that the single most important factor that explains East Asia's development success was its fast structural transformation toward industrialization, manufacturing in particular. Workers moved out of agriculture into manufacturing, and the sector diversified and upgraded its...

We focus on special characteristics of the manufacturing sector, in terms of employment generation and productivity growth, that enable the rapid, resilient economic catch-up of developing countries. We consider the 'developer's dilemma' and the relationship between manufacturing value added or...

This paper evaluates structural change, inequality dynamics, and industrial policy in South Africa between 1960 and the present day. We find that South Africa experienced growth-enhancing structural transformation until the early 1970s, before entering a period of premature deindustrialization....

This essay suggests that there is a need for a Catalytic Industrial Policy (CIP) aimed at maximising positive outcomes on three axes at the same time - the green, the digital and the social - in order to speed up their realisation. Respective investments need to be guided in the desired...

This paper examines Indonesia's upgrading within the global nickel value chain. Indonesia's transformation from a major nickel ore exporter into an integrated producer of refined nickel products offers important lessons for resource-rich developing countries seeking economic diversification....

Industrial policy has recently seen a renewed interest at both the political and the theoretical level, and has been much debated. This paper argues that an important research issue to address now is what industrial policy should be implemented, namely what set of instruments are to be applied...

The main purpose of industrial policy is to speed up the process of structural change towards higher productivity activities. This paper builds on our earlier writings to present an overall design for the conduct of industrial policy in a low- to middle-income country. It is stimulated by the...

This paper argues that the single most important factor that explains East Asia's development success was its fast structural transformation toward industrialization, manufacturing in particular. Workers moved out of agriculture into manufacturing, and the sector diversified and upgraded its...