r/EconomicHistory • u/yonkon • 13d ago

Working Paper Two paradigmatic cases of industrial policy - the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno in Italy (1950–1984) and Kennedy's Moonshot in the United States (1961–1972) - originated in a broader political project rather than in an economic diagnosis. (L. Field, R. Juhász, M. Zampa, September 2026)

https://www.nber.org/papers/w35802
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u/Express_Band6999 13d ago

I don't think the moonshot was ever taken seriously as a way of helping the economy through industrial policy, and opposition to it on economic grounds was persistent throughout the policy's life. It was sold as a vision and part of Cold War rivalry. Once we landed on the Moon, support for the space program began to fizzle.

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u/yonkon 13d ago

Right right. And that's something that the authors grapple with a bit.

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u/Express_Band6999 13d ago

I question why the two cases are part of the same paper.

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u/yonkon 13d ago

They both had tangible economic outcomes, so the authors see them as industrial policy. They study your precise observation - how it was marketed to the public and whether that had an impact on how the policy was received and sustained.

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u/Express_Band6999 12d ago

I know, but having read the paper, I still see the parallel as a stretch. Lots of non industrial policies have economic outcomes.

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u/yonkon 12d ago

Too true. Juhasz has a paper with Nathan Lane on how to define Industrial Policy on NBER that tries to square the circle - but I admit that even my own mental conception of industrial policy engages in scope creep.