CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Manz, Emily Rebecca |
|---|---|
| Title | Industrial Policy in Hungary and Slovakia: The Impact on the Firm-Level Performance of Diosgyor Steel Works and Eastern Slovakian Steel Works |
| Summary | This thesis has its roots in a basic yet controversial debate in economic policy- namely, whether or not industrial policy has a role to play in a state's economy. Given the current context of industrial decline globally, and more specifically in the post-socialist economies of Eastern Europe- governments are finding this question increasingly relevant as they seek to maintain and create jobs for the unemployed. In this thesis I will address this debate, but through the narrow lens of how industrial policy has played a role in the success and failure of two specific Eastern European steel firms; Diósgyőr Steel Works in Northeastern Hungary, and Eastern Slovakian Steel Works in Eastern Slovakia. Once similar sizes with labor forces around 18,000, one is now a successful and well-known firm, and the other has sunk into disuse and anonymity. Seeking to better understand if, and if so, how, industrial policy played a role in these firm's divergent outcomes, I examine the initial conditions of these firms and then the different policies pursued by each country in the stages of privatisation and restructuring. I argue that initial conditions mattered, but were by no means all defining, and highlight the specific ways industrial policy impacted firm performance. The piece closes with a discussion of the relatively new and very powerful actor in industrial policy in Eastern Europe, the EU, and what knowledge from this research can and should be taken as prescriptive. |
| Supervisor | Laszlo Csaba |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/manz_emily.pdf |
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