Theory and practice of State intervention: Italy, South Korea and stages of economic development

摘要

Strategies of economic development differ widely in terms of approaches to State intervention. However, across countries, certain policies tend to prevail at specific stages of development. For example, the Italian and South Korean cases, analysed in this paper, suggest the prevalence of sectoral policies at early stages, followed by a reorientation towards microeconomic policies at later stages. The paper interprets this trend through the viewpoints of three theoretical perspectives: structural, allocative and evolutionary. The historical and theoretical analysis of the paper shows that, even if each stage of development is characterised by the prominence of a specific policy over others, a mix of policies is pursued at each stage. In addition, the functions of each policy approach vary depending on the stage. This finding highlights unexpected linkages between theory and policy, and the need to consider different theoretical perspectives to understand the multifaceted character of economic policy. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.