Japanese Economic Policy and Policy Evaluation -The Case of "Industrial Policy"-

「産業政策」にかぎらず，日本の経済政策については，個々の政策についても，政策の効果，その国民経済的な望ましさが事後的にさえ話題になることは稀であった．日本の経済政策研究も政策評価に無関心・冷淡であり anecdotes の言及で代替し，結果として，政策が目的を有効に達成したことを確認する手段を提示しなかった．典型的政策手段の一つである政策融資でさえ，融資先の投資水準にほとんど影響を与え得ない状況下で実施されたことが，簡単な分析からわかる．「産業政策の有効性」を主張した膨大な量の分文献のほとんどは誤った前提から直接結論を導いているにずぎない．政府の能力に対するいわれなき信頼がこのような研究の蓄積を支えた．設問が適切でなければ適切な回答は得られない．「産業政策」を含む経済政策の研究においても政策評価が本格化することが望まれる．Despite the enormous literature on Japanese "industrial policy," few scholars have systematically measured the effect the policies have had. Instead, most merely rely on anecdotes. This is unfortunate, for the policies offer little reason to think that they could have accomplished their ostensible goals. One of the more common policies involved loan subsides--yet only under implausible circumstances could they have affected investment levels. One of the more common responses is to point to the 1960s--yet no one has shown that the government had even the capacity to have fostered that growth. One of the best known sets of subsidies involved smaller firms--yet we have little reason to think the government contributed to their long-term health. Some of the institutions supposedly most central to industrial policy were the specialty banks--yet none seems actually to have promoted growth