Indicative Planning - The Case of France
France and Japan – indicative planning
France is the advanced market capitalist economy
In Japan, indicative planning coincided with considerable economic success
Downgraded indicative planning to allow greater laissez-faire in policy
Laissez-faire or dirigisme
French drive for national unity
“let them do it"
Vigorous resistance to this dirigiste tradition
French are credited for socialism in the west
Fountainhead of world radicalism
Revolutionary tradition reflects its rooted class conflict
Term communism is of French origin
French revival with state in the centre
French nationalism is a powerful force
Hope of rebuilding the French economy
Postwar economic performance of France has been generally impressive
Indicative planning moved out
Made less credible after the first oil price shock
Politicized play, being taken less seriously
European unification and the increasing integration of the French economy
EU and France
Integration led to a loss of control over policy
First began with the ERM
Becoming increasingly irrelevant to the French national economy
General arguments
Ideal form isn't dirigiste
Dirigisme implies some correction or strong incentive
Information Pooling, Concertation, and Coherence
Pierre Masse introduced information pooling
Criticisms of concertation
Planners are no better at predicting surprise exogenous shocks than businesses
Critiques
If everyone is following the plan and the plan is based on incorrect forecasts of external trends
In practice
To enhance military strength
To prevent a direct link with the Soviets and their strong communist ideology.
France has engaged in public and influential indicative planning
More macroeconomically oriented**
Has had a strong component of regional planning