Industrial policies in developed and emerging countries: the case of Tunisia

Industrial policy is a microeconomic form of state intervention in industry. It monitors the performance of the secondary sector with stimulating the competitiveness of firms, overcoming market failures and adjusting its structure to economic, organizational and technological changing. Although this state intervention creates much debate, it regains interest in university research, in political discourse and economic practices. In this work, the experiences of France, Japan and the four dragons were analyzed in terms of objectives, instruments and conditions for success. The purpose behind is to learn from their actions and to try to form recommendations for others country. We also presented the state measures implemented in favor of Tunisian industry emphasizing their evolution over time, their effectiveness in achieving the goals and their impact on the evolution of the industry. We have shown that these measures are ineffective since they did not realize most of the time the objectives associated with it such as improving the competitiveness of industrial firms, increase technological content in production cycle and decreasing regional imbalance. We tried so to understand the causes behind the inefficacity of the Tunisian effort for its industry. Finally we conclude that these state efforts cannot build a genuine industrial policy.