New Industrial Innovation Policies in a World of Global Value Chains

Abstract

Global value chains (GVCs) are changing not only the way firms organize production but also the policies that influence social and economic development. In this chapter I make a first effort to develop and illustrate this framework. First, I present a typology of industrial innovation policies and extend it to “GVC-oriented policies,” that is, those policies that target the fostering of production and technology upgrading through GVCs. The examples from trade and foreign investment policies, and from innovation policies, confirm that a radical rethinking and theorizing of policies is necessary and urgent. Future research will need to move further and deeper into this direction.