Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/102405 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
QUCEH Working Paper Series No. 14-08
Publisher: 
Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH), Belfast
Abstract: 
There has been a recent identification of a need for a New Business History. This discussion connects with the analytic narrative approach. By following this approach, the study of business history provides important implications for the conduct and institutional design of contemporary industrial policy. The approach also allows us to solve historical puzzles. The failure of the De Lorean Motor Company Limited is one specific puzzle. Journalistic accounts that focus on John De Lorean's alleged personality defects as an explanation for this failure miss the crucial institutional component. Moreover, distortions in the rewards associated with industrial policy, and the fact that the objectives of the institutions implementing the policy were not solely efficiency-based, led to increased opportunities for rent-seeking. Political economy solves the specific puzzle; by considering institutional dimensions, we can also solve the more general puzzle of why activist industrial policy was relatively unsuccessful in Northern Ireland.
Subjects: 
institutions
analytic narrative
Northern Ireland
industrial policy
entrepreneurship
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
553.83 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.