Finance and industrial policy: Beyond financial regulation in Europe

The global financial crisis of 2008 together with the experience of de-industrialisation across Western Europe over the last three decades has brought to the fore both the issues of financial regulation and industrial policy in scholarship and policy debates in Europe. Industrial and finance policies have largely been discussed separately, in spite of their joint significance. This book advocates that the two need to be considered in tandem in both analysis and policy formulation that deals with the critical questions of how finance has intervened in industrial restructuring and how it might better serve the real economy. Moreover, policy debates have paid relatively little attention to the heterogeneous economic structures and growth trajectories of European economies, and the interconnectedness and interdependencies of growth paths that present specific challenges to policy as well as highlight the need for cooperation across the region.This book brings together leading scholars and policy makers to address some of these gaps in the conceptualisation of finance and industrial policies with the aim of contributing to policy debates in three ways. First, by intervening in, and bringing together, current discussions of banking policy, regulation and reform to reassert the need for financial institutions that will back up and finance an industrial policy to revive the European economy. Second, by reviewing the role of industrial and investment policies in supporting innovation, creating jobs and generating sustainable economic growth. Third, by advancing alternative policy proposals aimed at generating sustainable economic growth and employment in Europe.The book is organised into two parts. Contributions to part I analyse of the nature of growth, industrial and economic restructuring in relation to finance in the lead up to the crisis, at regional, national and sector levels. Part II presents alternative and progressive policy proposals for growth and employment in Europe in light of the analysis presented in part one