Infant industries and industrial policy a lesson from South Africa.pdf英文资料.pdfVIP

ARTICL E INFANT INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY : A LESSON FROM SOUTH AFRICA1 Raphael Kaplinsky and Edmund Mhlongo Introduction The debate on industrial policy is often counterposed between two truisms. On the one hand, market-based resource allocation is clearly important - it is not nations which compete, but individual firms. On the other hand, firms operate in the context of created endowments such as physical infrastructure and the education and training of their labour forces, so it is no so much that enterprises compete, but rather that they do so in the context of national endowments which are open to augmentation by government action (Reich, 1991). These two positions are often used to reflect an ideological divide between those who believe, on the one hand, that government should get off the back of industry and allow it to pursue the path that it alone knows best, and on the other hand those who believe in a comprehensive role for pervasive government intervention in industrial resource allocation. However, a reasoned assessment of international experience points to two central features. Firstly, there are very few cases where sustained industrial growth has not involved a key role played by government, albeit a role which allows for a substantial degree of entrepreneurial independence. And, secondly, the effective role played by governments has to be moderated by the individual historical and strategic circumstances of each country. Lessons can be learnt from comparative experience, but each country (as well as each sector, region and firm) will have to pursue an individual path which reflects the particular circumstances in which it operates. The South African economy has been built on