Diseño de instrumentos para configurar una política industrial en España basada en los postulados de la economía evolutiva

La evidencia empírica aplicada a países de cierto tamaño y desarrollo económico, muestra que existe una relación directa y positiva entre la intensidad de la industria manufacturera, medida como porcentaje de su PIB, y ciertas variables económicas como, el crecimiento, el desempleo y la balanza exterior de bienes y servicios. En el caso de esta última, se verifica empíricamente, que los países con una proporción de actividad manufacturera inferior al 20%, tienen una marcada tendencia a presentar déficits crónicos de balanza de bienes y servicios, lo que conduce a persistentes déficits por cuenta corriente, al ser el primer déficit el principal componente del segundo. Esto trae consigo un continuado incremento del endeudamiento externo que no cesa, y que terminará en algún momento por desequilibrar el conjunto de la economía de los países con esos déficits crónicos. Las anteriores conclusiones, abren una vía de orientación de la política económica, que tiene como objetivo la promoción de la industria manufacturera de cada país. Y esto es un hecho ya en 2014. Países relevantes, como Alemania o Francia en la UE, incluso los EEUU y últimamente el Reino Unido, y por supuesto países del área asiática como Japón, Corea del Sur y China, llevan años promoviendo su industria manufacturera. Resulta significativo, que el debate ideológico sobre la bondad de la aplicación política industrial por parte de los gobiernos, frente a las teorías liberales de mantener a los poderes públicos lejos de ese tipo de actividades, haya dado paso a un modelo generalizado de corte más bien horizontal, donde los países casi sin excepciones apoyan el desarrollo de sus empresas con numerosos instrumentos, que van bastante más lejos de los habituales de I+D. Se valora por tanto, la industria manufacturera como algo vital para el equilibrio económico. Incluso la UE, defensora durante décadas de la no intervención de los diferentes Estados miembros en actividades de promoción industrial más allá del apoyo a las actividades de I+D, realiza un giro copernicano, que termina en 2012 proclamando que la industria manufacturera es vital para el equilibrio económico de la UE, que hay que promoverla, e incluso marca un objetivo, precisamente del 20%, como contribución manufacturera a su PIB. Es decir, se da por asumido que los servicios no son un sustituto indefinido de la industria y que por tanto tienen un límite, lo que se contrapone frontalmente contra la anterior creencia de que el aumento de la participación de los servicios en la economía, no solo era bueno, sino un síntoma de desarrollo. Esta premisa ya ha dejado de ser cierta para esos y otros países. En cambio, en España nada de esto sucede en las dos últimas décadas, sino que la industria manufacturera no recibe especial atención de los poderes públicos y se desliza en una pendiente de disminución de su contribución al PIB, que incluso se acelera con la crisis económica que comienza en 2007, hasta alcanzar cifras del orden del 12% del PIB en 2013. La política económica que se aplica es la de la deflación de costes, con los efectos consecuentes sobre los salarios y sobre la capacidad de la economía de generar riqueza. Se apuesta por un modelo de mano de obra barata, que recuerda al de los años 60. Como indicador relevante de esta situación, lo que exporta la industria manufacturera española, no ha ganado en contenido tecnológico en los últimos quince años. Esta situación se ve empeorada por un hecho significativo adicional, y es que casi el 40% de las ventas de la industria manufacturera española provienen de empresas de propiedad extranjera, con lo que eso supone por una parte de dependencia tecnológica del exterior como en el caso del automóvil, y de incertidumbre sobre su futuro, al estar basadas en el mantenimiento en el futuro de una mano de obra barata, que frenará que los españoles que trabajan en esas empresas, progresen económicamente. La propuesta de esta Tesis, es en cambio apostar por un modelo de crecimiento para España que tenga como uno de sus pilares el desarrollo de una industria manufacturera sólida y con cada vez mayor contenido tecnológico. Para ello, se propone un Plan de política industrial, donde se incluye la creación de actores impulsores de este plan, que deben ser del máximo nivel político. Si los diferentes gobiernos no entienden y asumen esta necesidad de apoyo a la industria a largo plazo e independiente de los cambios políticos, no será posible llevar a cabo este Plan. Para su puesta en marcha, se propone la creación o refuerzo de numerosos instrumentos de apoyo a la industria manufacturera de carácter fundamentalmente horizontal que van mucho más allá de los habituales del I+D, y que en varios casos, tienen una clara semejanza con otros existentes ya en otros países desarrollados desde hace años. La promoción de la industria manufacturera necesita nuevos instrumentos, como una financiación a largo plazo para las empresas, una promoción ordenada y eficaz de la actividad internacional de las empresas exportadoras, la mayoría de las cuales exportan productos manufacturados, una educación y formación profesional que esté alineada con estos objetivos, unos instrumentos que apoyen en especial el desarrollo la industria manufacturera, o la participación minoritaria pero significativa, del Estado en empresas españolas pertenecientes a sectores estratégicos entre otros. En resumen, esta Tesis propone una alternativa de política económica radicalmente diferente a la de dejar la industria manufacturera española a su suerte, y basar el futuro económico de España en una mano de obra barata. ABSTRACT The empirical evidence, applied to countries of certain size and economic development, shows that there exists a direct and positive relationship between industrial manufacturing activity, measured as a percentage of GDP, and certain economic variables, such as growth, unemployment and the foreign balance of trade. In the case of the latter, it is verified empirically that the countries with a percentage of manufacturing activity below 20% have a marked tendency for chronic deficits of the balance of trade, leading to persistent deficits in the current account, being that the former deficit is the main component of the latter. This brings about a continued increase in foreign debt that does not cease, and that will end at some point by disrupting the economy of the countries with these chronic deficits. The previous conclusions open the way to a new direction for economic policy, which promotes industrial manufacturing in each country. This is already a fact in 2014. Relevant countries, such as Germany or France in the EU, even the US and ultimately the UK, and of course countries of East Asia such as Japan, South Korea and China, have been promoting their industrial manufacturing for years. It becomes significant that the ideological debate about the goodwill of the application of industrial policy by governments, against liberal theories that maintain public powers far from these kinds of activities, has taken a step towards a horizontal-cut generalized model, where countries, with almost no exception, rely on various instruments to develop their companies that go much further than the usual R&D. Industrial manufacture is therefore valued as vital for economic stability. Even the EU, proponent for decades of non-intervention policy that goes beyond R&D, has gone full circle, ending in 2012 by proclaiming that industrial manufacture is vital for the economic stability of the EU, that it must be promoted. They even mark precisely 20% as an objective for manufacturing as a percentage of GDP. In other words, it is a given that services are not an indefinite substitute for industry, and that therefore it has a limit as such. This rejects the notion that the increase in services at the cost of manufacture is not only healthy, but is also a symptom of development. This premise is no longer true for these and other countries. On the other hand, none of this happens in Spain, where industrial manufacture receives no special attention from the public authorities, and it slides on a downward slope of percentage contribution to GDP, which accelerates the economic crisis that begins in 2007, until manufacture reaches values of around 12% of GDP in 2013. The economic policy applied is that of cost deflation, with consequential effects on wages and the capacity of the economy to generate wealth. A model is proposed for cheaper labor, akin to that of the 1960s. As a relevant indicator of this situation, manufacturing exports from Spain have not grown technologically in the last 15 years. The situation is made worse by another significant fact: almost 40% of sales of the manufacturing industry originate from companies of foreign origin, which supposes on one hand a technological dependence on foreign countries, such as in the case of the automotive industry, and on the other hand uncertainty in its future, being that they are based on maintaining cheap labor in the future, which will slow economic progress of Spaniards working in these companies. The proposition of this Thesis is to bet on a growth model for Spain that has as one of its pillars the development of a solid manufacturing industry, with increasing technological content. For this, an industrial policy plan is proposed, which includes the creation of driving agents for this plan, which must be of maximum political level. If the various governments don’t understand and assume this necessity for support of industry in the long term, independent of political change, this plan will not be accomplished. To start it, the creation or reinforcement of numerous instruments to promote the manufacturing activities are proposed, with a fundamentally horizontal nature that goes far beyond the usual R&D, and that, in several cases, have a clear similarity with others existing in other countries, having been developed for years. The promotion of the manufacturing industry needs new instruments, such as the long-term financing of companies, an orderly and efficient promotion of international activity of exporting companies, the most of which export manufactured goods, education and professional training which is in tune with these objectives, some instruments which support in particular the development of the manufacturing industry, or the minor yet significant participation of the State in Spanish companies belonging to strategic sectors, among others. In summary, this Thesis proposes an different alternative to the economic policy of leaving the manufacturing industry of Spain to its chances, and to base the economic future of Spain on a cheaper labor force.

More Competitive, More Efficient? The 2013 European Commission Defence Communication. Security Policy Brief No. 49, September 2013

The European Commission has now released its 2013 Communication on defence-industrial policy. But does the latest set of policy ideas offer European defence-industrial cooperation any new impetus? This Brief argues that while the majority of the Commission’s initiatives are not new, some much needed ideas have made their way into the latest Communication.

The Dragon awakes: Is Chinese competition policy a cause for concern? Bruegel Policy Contribution 2013/14, 22 October 2013

China’s Anti-Monopoly Law, adopted in 2007, is largely compatible with antitrust law in the European Union, the United States and other jurisdictions. Enforcement activity by the Chinese authorities is also approaching the level seen in the EU. The Chinese law, however, leaves significant room for the use of competition policy to further industrial policy objectives. The data presented in this Policy Contribution indicates that Chinese merger control might have asymmetrically targeted foreign companies, while favouring domestic companies. However, there are no indications that antitrust control has been used to favour domestic players. A strategy to achieve convergence in global antitrust enforcement should include support for Chinese competition authorities to develop the institutional tools they already have, and to improve merger control by promoting the adoption of a consumer-oriented test and enforcing M&A notification rules.

REACH: A killer whale for SMEs? CEPS Policy Brief No. 307, 9 December 2013

REACH is a very demanding system for any business either large or small, yet right from the start one of the more serious concerns was whether and how SMEs could cope with the Regulation. After all, some 27,600 companies in EU chemistry are SMEs (95% of all firms). Seven years down the line, many of these fears are materialising. Assuming no significant changes are introduced to REACH, this paper suggests the following recommendations: Above all, we strongly encourage SMEs to start early and develop a strategy for REACH compliance well before 2018. Address the potential competition law implications of current SIEF arrangements, e.g. through a Guidance document from DG Competition by 2014 (in time for 2018) Facilitate the exchange of information along the value chain by adopting pragmatic approach to the content and format of Safety Data Sheets. More can be done on the IT front as well, for instance by developing tools that generate compliant Safety Data Sheets. Improve the communication of REACH and its intended goals, that is, the health and environmental benefits, to the wider public. SMEs regret the unawareness of the public in the light of the enormous efforts they have to undertake. In the event of a later review of REACH, the logic should be risk-based rather than hazard-based.

Paving the Way for Micro-, Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Southern Mediterranean. CEPS Policy Brief No. 314, 14 January 2014

The upheavals of the Arab Spring in the southern Mediterranean led to domestic and international demands on the governments in the region to implement reforms aimed at enhancing business and investment conditions especially for micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), which carry out an overwhelming majority of the region’s economic activity. A comprehensive survey among some 600 high-growth potential MSMEs in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia identified and ranked the key obstacles impeding their high-growth potential. This Policy Brief summarises the main results and policy recommendations that can be drawn from this survey, which has been analysed in depth by Ayadi & De Groen (2014).

Collateral and Credit Rationing. The role of collateral in explaining and remediating the limited flow of credit to households and SMEs. ECRI Policy Brief No. 7, February 2014

European-wide data concerning both companies and households indicate that the credit rationing phenomenon, which has been predicted by theory, does in fact occur to a significant degree in the European credit market. Among SMEs, micro companies are most vulnerable and the current economic crisis has only made these concerns more pressing. Top-down use of the monetary transmission mechanism alone is insufficient to counter the problem. The other solution consists of a bottom-up, microeconomic stimulation of lending transactions, by focusing on collateral and guarantees. The data confirm the high importance that lenders – especially individual households and micro companies – attach to collateral and guarantees when making their lending decisions. As a consequence, we would argue that those parts of the law governing security interests and guarantees should be one of the primary targets for government policy aimed at improving credit flows, especially in avoiding a conflict between consumer protection measures and laws on surety and guarantees. This policy brief firstly aims to give an overview of the problem of credit rationing and to show that low-income households and SMEs are most concerned by the phenomenon. Focusing solely on loans as a way of financing and on the issues related to access to finance by micro and small companies as well households, it then sketches possible solutions focused on guarantees. This paper brings together data from the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption survey (HFCS), Eurostat, and both the latest wave of the extended biennial EC/ECB Survey on the access to finance of SMEs (EC/ECB SAFE 2013) and the latest wave of the smaller semi-annual ECB SAFE Survey, covering the period between October 2012 and March 2013.

The Sustainability Impact of the EU Emissions Trading System on the European Industry. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 17/2007

This BEEP explains the mechanism of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and explore into its likely sustainability impact on European industry. In doing so, it focuses on energy-intensive industries like cement, steel and aluminium production as well as on the emerging hydrogen economy. The BEEP concludes that at the moment it is still very inconsistently implemented and has a fairly narrow scope regarding greenhouse gases and involved sectors. It may also give an incentive to relocate for energy-intensive industries. In its current format, the EU ETS does not yet properly facilitate long term innovation dynamics such as the transition to a hydrogen economy. Nevertheless, the EU ETS is foremost a working system that – with some improvements – has the potential to become a pillar for effective and efficient climate change policy that also gives incentives for investment into climate friendly policies.

Has the European ICT sector a chance to be competitive? Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 14/2006

In this paper we try to present the main trends of evolution of the ICT sector. Its dynamics, supported by a constant technical progress in ICs, compounded with “non convexities” such as network effects and high sunk costs, may either lead to a Schumpeter Mark I or Schumpeter Mark II competition regime. This means that in some segments, the market will be more competitive (Mark I), while in other it will be more monopolistic (Mark II). But a key trend is also the so called “convergence”. But digitization makes it cost effective to integrate different communications, information processing and entertainment systems and devices. Hence, Schumpeter Mark II grows at the core where software production dominates, while Schumpeter Mark I is established at the periphery. In this context, the European ICT industry is potentially smashed between two forces: the cost advantages of Asian countries on one hand, the inventiveness and dynamism of the US industry on the other hand. The way out of this very difficult situation is to create in Europe the conditions of restoring knowledge accumulation in a key sub-sector of ICT, that is software production. To do this, Europe can rely on its tradition of cooperation and knowledge sharing and on a set of institutions that have shown their ability to stimulate inter-regional cooperation. By concentrating on an ambitious project of open source software production in embarked systems and domestic networks, Europe could reach several objectives: to make freely accessible an essential facility, to stimulate competition, to help reaching the Lisbon objectives and to restore the European competitiveness in ICT.

An Industrious European Council on Defence? Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 53, February 2014

The December 2013 Council meeting set in motion a number of important “roadmaps” for defence-industrial policy in Europe. Now the member states, the European Defence Agency and European Commission need to be aware of the potential roadblocks ahead.

Knowledge-Bearing Elites and Industrial Performance in France and Germany. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 04.5, December 1993

Most comparative studies of public policies for competitiveness focus on the links among public agencies and industrial sectors. This paper argues that the professions---or knowledge-bearing elites-that animate these organizational links are equally significant. For public policies to promote technological advance, the visions and self-images of knowledge-bearing elites are par­ ticularly important. By examining administrative and technical elites in France and Germany in the 1980s, the paper identifies characteristics that enable these elites to implement policy in some cases, but not in others. France's "state-created" elites were well-positioned to initiate and implement large technology projects, such as digitizing the telecommunications network. Germany's state-recognized elites were, by contrast, better positioned to facilitate framework­ oriented programs that aimed at the diffusion of new technologies throughout industry. The linkages among administrative and technical elites also explain why French policymakers had difficulty adapting policy to changing circumstances over time while German policymakers managed in many cases to learn more from previous policy experiences and to adapt subsequent initiatives accordingly.

Capitalism without Capitalists? A Bottom-Up View of Industrial Transformation in East Germany. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 00.1, 1999

Research on the industrial transition in East Germany and its outcomes has long focused on the strategy of the Treuhand­ anstalt (IHA). According to institutionalists, David Stark and Lazlo Brust!: (1998), the powerful position of the German privatization agency was not only a result of German unification but also a function of a pathway rooted in the institutional peculiarities of the East German economy before 1989. This paper shows that neither a simple top-down perspective nor the pathway approach, as Stark and Brust!: suggested, are adequate for explaining the internal dynamic of enterprise transformation as well as the outcomes of this process. First of all, the dissolution of the former organizational structures and hierarchies was less coordinated by the 1HA than is often assumed. Often Kombinates fell apart more quickly from below than they could be dismantled from above since enterprises or their units chose the exit­ option and had good reasons to do so. Secondly, although the privatization by the 1HA resulted in the clear dominance of Western investors, the new ownership structure of East German industry as a whole could be characterized as a "capitalism without (East German) capitalists." In fact, what exists in East Germany is rather a kind of "small business capitalism" (KleinbetriebsknpitalifmllS) in which small-and medium-sized producers dominate the landscape. Finally, there was no single starting point in 1989. Two different industrial orders shaped the industrial history of the East German regions which were not destroyed between 1945-89, but rather transformed into the state socialist production system. It can be shown that these older historical patterns are relevant for transition and their outcomes as well.

Policy Options for Improving the Functioning and Efficiency of the Digital Single Market in the Field of Copyright. CEPS Special Report No. 121, 19 November 2015

This study explores the existing policy problems and the possible options for reforming the EU copyright framework as provided by EU Directive 29/2001 on Copyright in the Information Society (InfoSoc Directive) and related legislation, with a specific focus on the need to strengthen the Internal Market for creative content. We find two main policy problems: i) the absence of a Digital Single Market for creative works; and ii) the increasing tension between the current system of exceptions and limitations and the legal treatment of emerging uses of copyrighted content in the online environment. Without prejudicing a future impact assessment that might focus on more specific and detailed policy options, our analysis suggests that ‘more Europe’ would be needed in the field of copyright, given the existing sources of productive, allocative and dynamic efficiency associated with the current system. Looking at copyright from an Internal Market perspective would, in this respect, also help to address many of the shortcomings in the current framework, which undermine legal certainty and industrial policy goals.

Information Guide: Enterprise Policy

A guide to the European Union’s Enterprise Policy, with hyperlinks to sources of information within European Sources Online and on external websites

The government as dominant shareholder : how should the taxpayers' ownership rights be exercised? : hearing before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, first session.

Mode of access: Internet.

U.S. industrial strategy : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, September 22, 1982.

Item 1013-A, 1013-B (microfiche)