Network industrial policy in the age of the new industrial revolution

Abstract

The prolonged world economic uncertainty for last 10 years, testifies to tectonic shifts in the world economic structure, and, in particular, about the gradual transformation of global production. Reindustrialization and reshoring in the US, coupled with the protectionist policy of D. Trump, confirm the thesis of a radical restructuring of the world industrial landscape on the new industrial revolution background. The article advances a hypothesis of a new industrial paradigm «global design — local production» on the basis of industrial Internet and additive technologies. Network organization, inherent in the new paradigm, generates new forms of industrial development assistance. A hypothesis is proposed to stop the orientation to the “scale effect” in the conduct of a network industrial policy. Network industrial policy must take into account that production and consumption cease to be separate phases in the system of social reproduction, consumers are able to partially perform the functions of a co-productor, and producers become consumers of crowdsourcing services. A criterial comparison is made of the network industrial policy inherent in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with vertical and horizontal industrial policies operating in the era of the previous industrial revolutions.