Is making semiconductors in Europe a good idea? With the introduction of the European Chips Act in early 2022, this is no longer an academic question. In this article we evaluate these plans in light of a wider—but remarkably one-sided—debate on industrial policy in advanced capitalist economies. Instead of focusing on policymakers, as most students of industrial policy have done, we draw attention to two first-order conditions that determine the chances of policy success: the existence of (proto-)competitive incumbents, and the alignment of the policy objectives with the prevailing institutional framework. We rely on that framework to evaluate the successes and failures in European aerospace, German biotech, and French computers, before using these insights to evaluate the European Chips Act. Investing in manufacturing of mature chips is, in that light, not a good idea. We suggest, instead, that the EU should concentrate on market segments that leverage its high-skill workplaces and world-class research system, and in which Europe has either already developed a comparative advantage or will not find itself at an initial disadvantage.

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Chips 先生前往布鲁塞尔：关于欧盟半导体政策的利弊

在欧洲制造半导体是个好主意吗？随着 2022 年初欧洲芯片法的出台，这不再是一个学术问题。在本文中，我们根据关于发达资本主义经济体产业政策的更广泛但非常片面的辩论来评估这些计划。我们不像大多数研究产业政策的学生那样关注政策制定者，而是关注决定政策成功机会的两个首要条件：（原始）竞争性在位者的存在，以及政策目标与政策目标的一致性。现行体制框架。我们依靠该框架来评估欧洲航空航天、德国生物技术和法国计算机领域的成功和失败，然后再使用这些见解来评估欧洲芯片法。投资于成熟芯片的制造是，在这种情况下，这不是一个好主意。相反，我们建议欧盟应该专注于利用其高技能工作场所和世界级研究体系的市场领域，欧洲要么已经形成了比较优势，要么不会发现自己处于最初的劣势。