While market-oriented policies dominated the post-WWII era, government intervention is the order of the day. New industrial policies are largely different from the ones of previous decades. Their goal is to coordinate public and private sector activity, as well as jumpstart new economic sectors. The new targeted “industries” are in the areas of digital and sustainable economy. Moreover, they are more outward looking compared to older industrial policies; they aim at creating comparative advantages for states in the international economy and shelter states from national security emergencies.

The goal of the IPDD Project is to study in a comparative way the (re-)emergence of industrial law and policy allowing state intervention in the economy, as well as explore its role in digital and sustainable development in the Global South and North – with a focus on emerging economies. In addition, the project aims at exploring the ways in which industrial policy is reshaping domestic and international trade and investment policies and agreements.

The project focuses on new industrial and digital policymaking from a (legal) comparative, international, empirical, historical, and political economy perspective. It involves faculty members in law as well as in economics at HBKU, Georgetown University in Qatar (GUQ), Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, and the Geneva Graduate Institute.