The Role of Planning Contracts in the Conduct of French Industrial Policy

The French have a long history of state economic planning, of comprehensive industrial policy, and of contractualised relations between the state and firms, though the links between them have not always been close. In the following section we review the relevant history of French planning and industrial policy. We focus in the second section on the development of contractual relations between corporations and the state in postwar France until the Socialists took office in 1981. In the third section we discuss recent developments, and we conclude with a theoretical appraisal of the experience.