深度报告-2025-09-01-IMF-英国的产业政策_英国（英）页_32页_1mb

Industrial Policy in the UK, published by Andrew Hodge and Samuel Pienknagura in August 2025 for the IMF, explores the design and implementation of the UK's new industrial strategy announced in June 2025. The paper emphasizes the challenge of boosting economic growth amid a slowdown since the Global Financial Crisis. Industrial Policy (IP), comprising vertical interventions, has the potential to catalyze investment and improve productivity, but faces significant risks if poorly designed, including fiscal costs, economic distortions, and reduced private investment. Successful IP requires targeting based on evidence of market failures, careful governance arrangements, strict fiscal controls, and the support of horizontal policies in areas like skills and infrastructure.

Key insights:

• IP is most effective when targeted at overcoming specific market failures (e.g., externalities, imperfect competition, information asymmetries, delayed returns).
• Market failures are hard to identify, making an evidence-based quantitative approach recommended for effective targeting, including metrics like the "Distortion Centrality" index.
• Fiscal risks can be mitigated through time-bound programs with fixed financial limits and rigorous monitoring.
• Horizontal policies and structural reforms in planning, education, infrastructure, and other "enabling" areas are prerequisites for the success of vertical IP interventions.
• The impact of UK IP on productivity can be quantified using models, but IP must be carefully targeted to avoid causing supply gluts and international spillovers or leakages.

The UK’s National Wealth Fund (NWF) plays a crucial role in catalyzing private investment, but faces challenges in demonstrating “additionality” and managing fiscal risks. Overall, the paper stresses that while IP can be a useful tool, other policies are critical for long-term productivity growth.