Global Subsidy Race

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments
Captions
So tell us about this wonderful world of industrial policy. I mean, sometimes we criticize it and it looks like right now the United States is embracing it. Where are we globally on industrial policy? You know, this is one of those things where it's a fast moving bit of a bit of economics, certainly of economic policymaking. You know, for decades, certainly when I was first learning about industrial policy and economic policy, it was it's kind of a dirty word, certainly Capital I capital P industrial policy, because it was the idea made it more popular in the fifties and sixties that governments could spot strategic industries and invest in them. And the line I was always given that they were good at picking losers, they weren't good at picking winners and that you could waste a lot of money doing that as a government. And if you were going to do it successfully, well, the only places that had done that were maybe places like Korea or Singapore, where you had highly effective states and you had, you know, these were emerging market economies that had a path to follow. They could see what other countries had done. So they had less chance of getting it wrong. And what's changed, I think, you know, like so many things, has been upended by the different geopolitical outlook. You know, that what you think of as even, you know, what a winner would be in a context where you could have in ten or 20 years time a decoupled global economy really changes. You know, it could be you may have wasted a lot of money and an economist might have said that is a big you've inefficiently used those resources. You're not making profits. You've produced excess capacity of a good in the global market from doing this industrial policy. But if in 20 years time you find that you're the only place with, say, a solar panel industry on one side of a big economic divide in the global economy, well, maybe all that quote unquote wasted money will turn out to have been well spent. So I think everyone's having to kind of rethink what success and failure looks like in an industrial policy context. But we certainly could be in for wasting a lot of money with these subsidies, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. How much of this do you think is triggered by China? Because China is now the second largest economy, some things that may be on its way to first, it certainly embraced subsidizing industry quite a bit. The Biden ministration criticizes China a great deal for that, but it's an enormous amount of money. How much of that is the rest of us being afraid that they will overwhelm us? Well, and I think it's also it's not just the fear, right. It's actually the reality in some key sectors. I mean, green technology is a classic example. We're now looking at how much Chinese EVs, electric vehicles are just sort of swamping the global market. A lot of subsidies have certainly gone into that. The European Union announced an investigation into EVs and they've already been burned when it comes to solar panels because the European Union had invested a lot in developing, wanted to have a big domestic solar panel industry was just wiped out of the water by by China. There's the sheer scale of Chinese production. Now, 90% of solar panels in Europe are made in China and actually a very high proportion in the US as well. So, you know, China is driving this, but of course if you're Europe, it's also the Biden administration's response to China, things like the Inflation Reduction Act. You know, the the Europeans have felt like they had to have their own thing. They announced the Net zero Industry Act last year was very explicitly about building the European domestic green energy systems and products so that they weren't going to end up reliant on China. And how much pressure is there on Europe. That's what the IMF warned about, that they thought that Europe would go that direction, warned that that was not a good idea. They're better off breaking down some of the trade barriers that they already have internally. At the same time, there's a general perception that the European economy is not as efficient, is not as competitive as the US economy, and maybe some others right now. Do they need to do of some sort of large fiscal infusion to really get competitive? I mean, I suspect certainly the International Monetary Fund would say it is as much about developing the single market and working as a cohesive bloc as it is about spending lots of money. Yes, there's going to need to be a lot of investment funds for green technologies, for decarbonizing the economy, potentially for taking advantage of digital technologies that Europe hasn't hasn't been able to do as well as as the US. So a basic principle of ethics that I learned back when I was in college was art implies can which just say, you say you ought to do something first. You have to be able to do it. When you say you have to kind of jump competitively Europe to the United States, can it do it? Is it possible or are there structural factors that really mean that it's never going to catch up? Well, I think even the philosopher Immanuel Kant was wasn't quite sure whether aut implied Kant. And certainly when you're a policymaker, you often find that does not imply Kant at all. If you're a voter, you often find that. So I mean, clearly Europe, as I mentioned, has been trying to do this stuff for a while. I think it is interesting that they're focusing, particularly when they're talking about investing in green technologies now. Their minds have been focused by what has happened with China and the fact that they've basically lost the battle on solar panels. So they're thinking about how can they invest in a smart way, not completely matching China on scale, but maybe matching or exceeding it on quality innovation, also thinking about how they work together. So individual countries now, if they're all warring against each other, you know, having battling subsidies against each other, that's obviously going to be a disaster. Is there the political will in Europe to really become more competitive economically? Is this a political issue that is on voters minds? I think it's always one of those things that is talked about a lot in Brussels by the European Commission always sounds a bit boring. Even the phrase European competitiveness. I mean, voters have had the have have heard politicians talk about it a long time and even worse, while these capital markets union, which they've been talking about for for literally years, decades. But, you know, if you have the kind of pool of investment capital that you have in the US, you're not just relying on bank finance, which obviously is the dominant source of funding for companies for investment in Europe, you know, that does open up a lot of opportunities. So I think voters understand that the green transition is a big deal. Decarbonization. They're worried about the costs of that. They understand that may be a more kind of European energy market, might be a good way of doing that. They certainly noticed the number of Chinese EVs on the streets of of Germany, of France, of all these countries. Whether they're really ready to make sacrifices for that, that is less clear.
Info
Channel: Bloomberg Television
Views: 2,789
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: Currency, David Westin, Economy, Europe, European economy, Federal Reserve, Inflation, Interest Rates, Jobs, Protectionism, Stephanie Flanders, Trade, U.S. Stock Market, Unemployment, banks, central banks, labor market, recession
Id: _ZWkzaD6yPQ
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 6min 42sec (402 seconds)
Published: Fri Apr 26 2024
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.