Pharma industry growth
1 Introduction
Promoting industries and creating jobs, if successful, would boost economic development and thereby support state building.
While politicians and bureaucrats are
aware of how important industrial development is, they are unaware of how to facilitate it. In the international development cooperation community in developed countries
and international organizations, the commonly accepted view until recently was that industrial policy would not work because market failures prevent industrial development from occurring and, hence, it would be too difficult for the developing countries, especially current low-income countries, to address the failures without causing serious government failures. Thus, policymakers in developing countries could not receive encouragement or useful suggestions for industrial development from this community. More recently, there has been a sea change. Major publications by international organizations, such as the World Bank’s World Development Report 2013 and the
African Development Bank and the OECD Development Centre’s African Economic
Outlook 2012, emphasize the importance of creating jobs and generating incomes through improving productivity in the industrial sector.
Also, symposiums and
conferences on the same issues abound. This change is encouraging for the people of developing countries longing for industrial development. This, however, is just the beginning of the accumulation of knowledge necessary for providing a scientific foundation for the prescription and implementation of a strategy for industrial development. Considerable further research on industrial policy is clearly warranted.
This paper reports a case study of a successful industrial policy which was proclaimed and enacted by the government of Bangladesh three decades ago.
2
One
reason why we focus on a successful case and not failures is that there are already scores of excellent studies on failed industrial policies, such as Balassa (1971),
Promoting industries and creating jobs, if successful, would boost economic development and thereby support state building.
While politicians and bureaucrats are
aware of how important industrial development is, they are unaware of how to facilitate it. In the international development cooperation community in developed countries
and international organizations, the commonly accepted view until recently was that industrial policy would not work because market failures prevent industrial development from occurring and, hence, it would be too difficult for the developing countries, especially current low-income countries, to address the failures without causing serious government failures. Thus, policymakers in developing countries could not receive encouragement or useful suggestions for industrial development from this community. More recently, there has been a sea change. Major publications by international organizations, such as the World Bank’s World Development Report 2013 and the
African Development Bank and the OECD Development Centre’s African Economic
Outlook 2012, emphasize the importance of creating jobs and generating incomes through improving productivity in the industrial sector.
Also, symposiums and
conferences on the same issues abound. This change is encouraging for the people of developing countries longing for industrial development. This, however, is just the beginning of the accumulation of knowledge necessary for providing a scientific foundation for the prescription and implementation of a strategy for industrial development. Considerable further research on industrial policy is clearly warranted.
This paper reports a case study of a successful industrial policy which was proclaimed and enacted by the government of Bangladesh three decades ago.
2
One
reason why we focus on a successful case and not failures is that there are already scores of excellent studies on failed industrial policies, such as Balassa (1971),