Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 07/2011

The role of multinationals in sparking industrialization: From "infant industry protection" to "FDI-led industrial take-off"

Terutomo Ozawa

June 2011

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Abstract

Although not yet fully conceptualized as a new catch-up model in mainstream development economics, the infant industry argument (protectionism designed to replace imports with domestic substitutes) is giving way to a foreign direct investment (FDI)-led model of industrialization.