With the Queensland Government willing to invest $200 million in Virgin Australia to keep its HQ in Brisbane, I thought it would be timely to record a podcast interview on investment attraction and industry policy more broadly. On Tuesday, I spoke with Craig Lawrence, Managing Director of Lytton Advisory, about the pros and cons of interventionist industry policy, i.e. picking winners. Craig previously worked as an economist in Queensland’s Department of State Development and has advised on a variety of investment attraction packages over the years. I’ve now published our conversation as Economics Explained EP38: Picking winners.

A transcript of our conversation is available on my business website.