Output

Book

State-firm coordination and upgrading

Oxford University Press. 2021.

This book explores the role of state-firm coordination in enabling late industrializing economies to reach the efficiency frontier in complex (skill-, capital-, and knowledge-intensive) industries in the context of globalization. The study focuses on two countries: Spain and South Korea between 1985 and 2020 and the research is based on case studies of three complex industries that are central to the two countries’ economies: information and communication services, banking, and the automotive industry. I argue that state activism is indispensable to enable firms to develop the stock of capabilities and resources they need to build complex competitive advantages in the post-1980s era and characterize two equifinal pathways to upgrading; one based on technological autonomy and self-sufficiency and another one based on foreign direct investment, technological outsourcing, and regional integration.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Garcia Calvo, A. (2020) State–Firm Coordination and Industrial Upgrading in the ICT industry. New Political Economy. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SFIG85DCJXZCJ8Q9SWSY/full?target=10.1080/13563467.2019.1708882

This paper explores the relationship between firms' upgrading capacity and the structure and powers of national economic policy-making in the context of the ICT industry. The analysis is based on empirical data from Spain's and Korea's telecommunications services and electronics since the mid-1980s.

Garcia Calvo, A. Banking as an industry or banking as an instrument? (Proposal for Cambridge Elements)

This short book examines the relationship between government perceptions of the banking sector and the politics of industrial change. Using comparative data from Spain, Korea, France, and Japan since the 1970s, I define two types of systems: One that considers banking as an industry in its own right with high potential for upgrading, and another in which the banking sector is a government instrument for the provision of patient capital to manufacturing. Due to the pivotal role of the financial industry, these perceptions influence strategies for the competitive transformation of banks and, more generally, the politics of industrial change.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 747943.