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Economist & Policy Expert

Baptiste
Albertone

Economic history moves in waves. Each technological revolution reshapes production, upends competitive advantage, and opens a window for late developers to break through. I work on the political economy of those transitions: who captures them, who misses them, and what states, firms, and international institutions can do to ensure they lead to broad-based prosperity.

American Landscape, Charles Sheeler, 1930
Charles Sheeler — American Landscape, 1930

I am an economist and postdoctoral researcher at the Technology and Industrialisation for Development (TIDE) Centre. I work at the intersection of economic development, technological change, and sustainability, with a particular focus on the design of green industrial policy strategies and the geoeconomics of the green transition.

I have advised governments, international organisations, civil society groups, and financial institutions on economic diversification and innovation strategies, regional cooperation frameworks, and sectoral plans for economic catch-up.

My work has also been published in leading academic journals — including Development and Change and the Review of International Political Economy — as well as in general-audience outlets such as Le Monde Diplomatique, Le Grand Continent, and El Universal.

I hold a PhD from the University of Cambridge, supervised by Professor Ha-Joon Chang. Prior to my PhD, I completed an MPhil in Development Studies at Cambridge and a Master's in International Economic Policy at Sciences Po Paris. I also hold a Politics & Economics undergraduate degree from Sciences Po.

Published 2025

Lost Principles of Sustainable Developmentalism

Baptiste Albertone — Review of International Political Economy, 32(3): 766–89

A recovery of the intellectual foundations of sustainable developmentalism, tracing how core principles that once linked ecological concern with productive transformation have been progressively abandoned — and what it would take to reclaim them.

Published 2025

Development Rethought, Development Forgotten? A Review of the UNCTAD 2024 Trade and Development Report

Baptiste Albertone, Tin Hinane El Kadi & Amir Lebdioui — Development and Change, 56(4–5): 1084–1110

A critical assessment of UNCTAD's 2024 Trade and Development Report, engaging its analysis of structural disadvantages facing commodity-dependent economies, its diagnosis of barriers to technology access, and the limits of its prescriptions on industrial policy and policy space.

Working Paper 2025

Regional Coordination of Green Industrial Policies: The ASEAN Experience

Baptiste Albertone, Amir Lebdioui & Tham Siew Yean — TIDE Working Paper 93, University of Oxford

Examines the conditions under which regional coordination of green industrial policy can be realised, drawing on the ASEAN case. Analyses how horizontal policies acquire a more strategic dimension at regional scale and why vertical coordination remains far rarer — with lessons for other regions seeking to align their industrial strategies.

Public Writing
El Universal 2024

El momento de México: forjando una política industrial de 360° para capitalizar la coyuntura global

With Amir Lebdioui

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Le Monde Diplomatique Feb 2022

L'institution qui a inventé l'Amérique latine

With Anne-Dominique Correa

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Le Grand Continent Jun 2020

Une Europe pour le monde — une conversation avec Pierre Defraigne

With Valère Piérard

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Le Grand Continent Apr 2020

La zone Euro et le virus du déni

With Valère Piérard

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Le Grand Continent Dec 2019

Que se passe-t-il en Colombie ? — conversation avec le Président Ernesto Samper

With Anne-Dominique Correa

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Le Grand Continent Jun 2019

L'Équateur au miroir du cas Assange — une conversation avec Guillaume Long

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Le Grand Continent Jul 2018

Brésil : la démocratie contre le peuple ?

With Anne-Dominique Correa

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