A New Wave of Industrial Policy in Asia-Pacific: Could Resurgence lead to Structural Transformation?

This paper provides a first comprehensive assessment of industrial policy (IP) across Asia‑Pacific and its potential to enable structural transformation. Building an IP database for 2009–2024, paired with a rich dataset, the paper documents a large wave of IP interventions. Subsidies dominate, followed by import-limiting measures. Novel applications of machine‑learning and clustering approaches to assess IP targeting suggest that, ex-ante, about three-quarters of IP could align with structural transformation strategies, including relatively safe (“safe-bets”) and risky (“moonshots”) strategies promoting technological upgrading and diversification, and strategies to alleviate market‑frictions and distortions in key sectoral nodes. IP’s ex-post linkages to trade, competitiveness, and domestic firms’ indicators are small and short‑lived; sustained gains that could lead into structural transformation appear only sporadically. Our findings underscore the need for a more parsimonious and carefully‑designed IP—anchored to targeting clear market‑failure rationales and complemented by ambitious structural reforms—potentially enhancing effectiveness and lowering net costs.