The major Chinese industrial policy for semiconductors has been the 2014 Mega Project that continues to this day. In a recent paper, Douglas Fuller examines the effectiveness of China’s major semiconductor industrial policies of the twenty-first century by utilizing trade and integrated circuit industry data. Using interrupted time series and difference-in-difference estimation, his research tests if these policies had positive impacts on capital equipment investment, total production, export volumes, and relative export prices. He found that the evidence conforms to critiques of China’s industrial policy, particularly high-tech industrial policy, that argue these policies are capital-intensive plans that induce more production without yielding much technological catch-up. In this talk, Fuller shared his findings and offered a political economy explanation of semiconductor policy in the Hu-Wen and Xi eras.
This event was jointly sponsored by the Department of Government and the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University.
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Douglas B. Fuller is an associate professor in the Department of International Economics, Government and Business at Copenhagen Business School. His research focuses on the intersection of Chinese politics, comparative political economy, technology policy, and corporate technology strategy. He is the author of Paper Tigers, Hidden Dragons: Firms and the Political Economy of China’s Technological Development (2016, 2019) and editor of volumes on Hong Kong’s innovation system and on technology flows between the United States, China and Taiwan.
