Return of Industrial Policy in the V4 Countries: Insights From the NIPO Database

Abstract

Industrial policy, which has long been marginalised in economic thought, is now experiencing a global revival. This new industrial policy renaissance has also reached the dependent market economies of the Visegrád Four (V4). However, there has been limited quantitative analysis of industrial policy in the region. This paper addresses this gap by using the recently developed NIPO database to evaluate industrial policies in Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland between 2017 and 2023. In addition to the core NIPO categories, we have developed a customised classification system to analyse the objectives, beneficiaries and primary funding sources of industrial policy interventions. According to our results, the V4 countries, which predominantly outsourced their industrial policy to multinational companies after the 1989 regime change and focused on attracting FDI, started to implement vertical, sector-specific interventions alongside horizontal industrial policy. Nevertheless, this shift remains heavily dependent on external financing, particularly EU and EIB funds, and continues to prioritise foreign firms, highlighting the ongoing reliance on the dependent market economy model. Based on the results, we identify four distinct national industrial policy trajectories: Slovakia's industrial policy is the most EU-embedded, with a particular focus on the automotive industry. Hungary's industrial policy is centred on domestic resources, but heavily supports foreign (notably Asian) capital. In contrast, Poland pursues an industrial policy oriented towards domestic firms, while the Czech Republic's industrial policy is EU-embedded and focused on foreign firms, but with a more diverse and RDI-focused approach than Hungary's.