In this episode, Pranav Manie sits down with Mausam Kumar, post-doctoral researcher at Princeton, former industrial policy fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and PhD from IIT Bombay to unpack how India’s industrial policy really works, what the role of individual states is in the process, who drives the finance it needs, and how it interacts with external factors like China.
We cover:
- Why Tamil Nadu became a magnet for Apple and global manufacturers
- How the PLI scheme differs from India's historical approach to industrial incentives
- The tension between central and state-level policy in shaping manufacturing outcomes
- India's place in a world turning toward economic nationalism and protectionism
- The role of development finance institutions, the India-China dynamic, and green manufacturing
Timestamp:
0:00 Introduction
1:39 India's Industrial Policy in the Global Context
4:19 Centre vs. States: Fiscal Federalism & Industrial Policy
8:13 State Capacity: Tamil Nadu, Gujarat & Maharashtra Compared
13:14 How Sector-Specific Zones & Agglomeration Drive Growth
17:59 Why States, Not the Centre, Decide Where Investments Land
22:51 The PLI Scheme: How Conditionalities Shape Industrial Policy
29:24 Lessons from Japan's MITI & Korea's EPB
38:39 Authoritarianism & Industrial Policy: Separating the Myth
45:14 Competition Policy, Picking Winners & Disciplining Firms
53:33 Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) & the Licence Raj
1:08:02 Solar PV Manufacturing & Green Industrial Policy
1:18:07 India-China: FDI, Enclaving & the Geopolitics of Green Tech
1:23:13 Chinese FDI vs. Belt & Road: Why the Distinction Matters
1:27:32 The China Squeeze & India's Manufacturing Catch-Up
1:34:00 Export-Led Growth: Is the Playbook Still Valid?
1:31:44 Manufacturing vs. Services: Ha-Joon Chang vs. Dani Rodrik
1:34:53 India's Services "Resource Curse" & the Path to Global Champions
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