Do we need national champions?: if so, do we need a champions-related industrial policy? ; an evolutionary perspective

Arbeitspapier

This paper discusses the role of so-called national champions within the context of the EU’s ambitious goal to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economic region in the world by 2010. We find football to be a useful analogy in our discussion of national champions. There are many different types of football players: veteran performers who are past their prime, young stars who have not yet developed their full potential, fans’ darlings, and the actual stars—the key performers. For a team to be consistently successful across time, it needs to maintain the right mix of different types of players, particularly in regard to current and future key performers. What makes a key performer a “real” star is not only extraordinary talent but also, and perhaps even more important, ability to be a team player and inspire others to be the same. Applying this analogy to the economic field, we come to the conclusion that the “real” champions in the business environment serve as network pilots within regional networks. By fostering a dynamic economic environment, they create their own rents, unlike less successful firms who concentrate on unproductive rent seeking and shifting.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Jena Economic Research Papers ; No. 2007,088

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods ; Industrial Policy ; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes ; Capitalist Systems: Planning, Coordination, and Reform
• Subject: national champions ; industrial policy ; evolutionary economics ; systems of innovation ; Industriepolitik ; Innovationspolitik ; Business Network ; Regionale Konzentration ; Evolutionsökonomik ; Deutschland

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Falck, Oliver ; Heblich, Stephan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics
• (where): Jena
• (when): 2007

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/25655
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET