Recent literature offers rigorous evidence on the efficacy of industrial policies, significantly improving upon flawed, correlational earlier work. This paper reviews the standard rationales and critiques of industrial policy, offering an overview of new empirical approaches focusing on measurement and causal inference. The analysis provides a nuanced, contextual understanding of policy effects, re-evaluates the East Asian experience, and concludes by discussing how new governance models and diverse instruments are reshaping modern industrial policy amidst de-industrialization.
