Objectives and Instruments of Industrial Policy: a Territory-level Analysis

The objective of this paper is to assess the extent to which the different types of concessional interventions currently available to industry, and more generally to the production system, may have met the specific needs of southern firms and whether changes should be made that are more tailored to the characteristics of southern firms. The paper opens with a brief excursus on the issues that have animated, in the most recent phase, the international debate and oriented some industrial policy measures, especially at the European level, essentially related to the ecological transition. A reading is then presented, at the territorial level, of the main facilitation measures, in terms of resources moved, grouped by those strategic objectives to which industrial policy is deemed to be directed. They refer to the need to direct resources more towards research activities, innovation, especially technological and digital innovation, and technology transfer, to facilitate access to credit, to raise the average size of enterprises, for internationalization and to consolidate the productive apparatus with defensive measures. For this purpose, data from the European Commission, for 2021, on the amount of State aid to enterprises, in relation to GDP, those of the Reports on the interventions to support economic and productive activities of the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy and the most recent data made available by the Administrations delegated to manage the interventions are used. The main findings on the South’s access to the facilities analyzed point to the need to field some lines of intervention capable of fostering greater territorial cohesion.