Marco Oberti Defends Dissertation on Renaissance in European Industrial Policy

In mid-February Marco Oberti successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Cologne. In “Forced Back into the Game but Unfit to Play: The Late Rebirth of European Industrial State Finance in the New Phase of Global Capitalism,” he investigates why industrial policy and state development finance have returned to the political agenda after a decades-long absence. Oberti shows how the rise of emerging economies has put western companies under competitive pressure and brought about a structural competitiveness crisis. At the center of his work is a comparative study of Germany and Italy: Across four industrial sectors – automotive, steel, chemicals, and construction – Oberti explores why the two countries have chosen different industrial policy pathways, making a distinction between “strategic” and “compensatory” industrial policy. His supervisor was Lucio Baccaro. Marco Oberti was a doctoral researcher at the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) from February 2020 to early 2025, since when he has been a postdoc at the MPIfG.