Stephen Cohen (from memory, only approximate):
Posted by DeLong at September 12, 2003 08:58 AM | TrackBack"Indicative planning" is supposed to indicate that what is going on is something very different from Soviet- or Ludendorffian-style command. Whether in Japan, Korea, or metropolitan Paris, the idea is not command-and-control but rather to try to reset the drift of market outcomes in a way that takes into account important things that you can see that the market is not taking into account.
Perhaps "steering" or "nudging" might be an appropriate term?
Posted by: Chuck Nolan on September 12, 2003 10:06 AM"Third way" petering out as a meme?
Posted by: George Zachar on September 12, 2003 11:22 AMPaul Krugman wrote extensively against "industrial policy". Is that the same as "indicative planning"?
Posted by: Joe Willingham on September 12, 2003 12:41 PMPaul Krugman wrote extensively against "industrial policy". Is that the same as "indicative planning"?
Posted by: Joe Willingham on September 12, 2003 12:47 PMJoe,
I see indicitive planning as figuring out what is likely to happen in the economy.
Now, you can do stuff based on the indicitive planning (eg oil industry will be 50% bigger in 5 years ... tell schools to start training more oil industry workers), or you can just dump your work into the public domain, and let the market make decisions for itself.
Basically, you need indicitive planning for good industrial policy, but just doing indicitive planning doesnt mean you are carrying out an industrial policy.
Ian
Posted by: Ian Whitchurch on September 12, 2003 04:23 PMJoe,
I see indicitive planning as figuring out what is likely to happen in the economy.
Now, you can do stuff based on the indicitive planning (eg oil industry will be 50% bigger in 5 years ... tell schools to start training more oil industry workers), or you can just dump your work into the public domain, and let the market make decisions for itself.
Basically, you need indicitive planning for good industrial policy, but just doing indicitive planning doesnt mean you are carrying out an industrial policy.
Ian
Posted by: Ian Whitchurch on September 12, 2003 04:28 PM>tell schools to start training more oil industry >workers)
Why do we need for the government to do that? Why can't the schools read the Journal of Economic Prediction (or whatever) and see for themselves that the experts are saying?
Or parents can go to the library and check out The Journal of Career Planning and see what are some of the promising career choices for their children?
Don't get me wrong. I'm no libertarian. I don't say the government should never do anything. It's just that I would rather see the money spent on repairing the national parks, or protecting the old growth forests.
Posted by: Joe Willingham on September 12, 2003 04:40 PMFrom what I remember from my readings on Japanese industrial policy, it was hardly the great success it's been made out to be in some quarters. Amongst the errors of the geniuses at MITI, I seem to recall, were (1) trying to prevent Honda from entering the automobile industry, and (2) refusing to back Sony's move into transistor radios.
Given that sort of track record in Japan, as well as disasters of the sort seen with the chaebols in Korea, I'd be hesitant to endorse any sort of government industrial planning, whether "indicative" or otherwise.
Posted by: Abiola Lapite on September 13, 2003 03:06 PMI don't that business people large or small are strangers to the idea of planning. I doubt that a man like Bill Gates just acts on the spur of the moment without trying to anticipate trends in technology and the economy. So let him do it on Microsoft's nickel. There's no reason for the taxpayers to foot the bill. At the other end of the scale the small business person can read what the pundits and prophets have to say and make up his or her own mind about how to proceed.
Of course they should all remember Bobbie Burns' words, "The best-laid plans o' mice and men aft gang agley".
Posted by: Joe Willingham on September 13, 2003 05:09 PM