State Aid to Car Companies: Were Government Responses to the Auto Industry Crisis Different in the United States and Europe?

State Aid to Car Companies: Were Government Responses to the Auto Industry Crisis Different in the United States and Europe? Public Deposited

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Creator

Coates-Chaney, Kingsley
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science

Abstract

The global recession in 2008 and 2009 hit car companies particularly hard. The effects were felt on both sides of the Atlantic. In this time of crisis, governments responded with many support programs to private finance and industry that had to work within WTO and EU competition rules. In the United States, General Motors and Chrysler received billions in guaranteed loans, car scrappage programs, and bankruptcy benefits. In Europe, the French government granted billions of euros in loans to its national champions PSA and Renault, as well as providing a car scrappage program and aid to individual factories. The German government focused its aid on a car scrappage program and aid to targeted factories. In the end, the different regulatory environments had less impact on making different state aid programs than did the differences in their domestic industry profiles.

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