Base de datos MAGIC de la OCDE sobre subvenciones industriales
Este estudio de la OCDE probablemente tendrá un efecto importante en las discusiones sobre comercio global, pero vale la pena señalar que su medición del alcance de los subsidios chinos no incluye dos de los subsidios más importantes que impulsan la competitividad global de la manufactura china.
El segundo es el subsidio financiero. El estudio intenta cuantificar hasta qué punto ciertos fabricantes pueden endeudarse por debajo de las tasas “de mercado”, pero cuando la propia tasa de mercado está reprimida —con casi todo el crédito dirigido a empresas y a inversión pública en lugar de al consumo de los hogares— esto puede constituir un subsidio muy grande (a menudo mayor que cualquier otro) que es difícil de medir.
Por eso, para que Estados Unidos pueda relocalizar producción, necesita ofrecer tipos de interés por debajo del mercado para la producción y tipos más altos para la especulación. Un impuesto Tobin lograría eso
The OECD make two substantial points. First, China's export success is driven not by comparative advantage but by competitive advantage, a function of large household transfers that subsidize manufacturing and that require trade surpluses to clear
- https://michaelpettis858496.substack.com/p/comparative-advantage-is-not-competitive
Subsidio cambiario: el RMB infravalorado
Una moneda artificialmente barata abarata las exportaciones y encarece las importaciones.
Funciona como un subsidio automático a toda la industria exportadora.
Es difícil de medir porque requiere estimar el “valor real” del RMB, algo metodológicamente controvertido.
Por eso, la OCDE y otros organismos suelen excluirlo, aunque su impacto es enorme.
Efecto sistémico
China convierte su política cambiaria en una herramienta industrial, no solo monetaria
Subsidio financiero: crédito barato y dirigido
China mantiene tasas de interés reprimidas.
El crédito se dirige masivamente a
- empresas industriales,
- infraestructura,
- inversión pública.
- El consumo de los hogares queda relegado
- Esto genera un costo de capital artificialmente bajo para la industria.
Resultado:
Este subsidio es tan grande que supera a todos los demás, pero es casi imposible de medir porque:
Este es aún más importante:
¿Cuál sería la tasa “de mercado” en un sistema donde el mercado no fija precios?
¿Cómo cuantificar el valor de un crédito que no se asigna según riesgo?
Por qué esto importa para EE. UU. y Europa
El texto concluye que si EE. UU. quiere “reshore” (relocalizar producción), debe replicar la lógica, no los instrumentos chinos:
- Crédito barato para producción(subsidio financiero selectivo)
- Crédito caro para especulación(desincentivar burbujas financieras)
Esto es exactamente lo que haría un impuesto Tobin:penalizar movimientos financieros especulativos y favorecer inversión productiva
Análisis RMS
Lectura RMS-Sistemica-Estrategica
El argumento central es que:
China no domina por subsidios visibles, sino por subsidios sistémicos.
Los subsidios “ocultos” —tipo de cambio y crédito dirigido— son los que realmente explican:
la escala industrial china,
su capacidad de bajar precios globales,
su velocidad de comercialización,
su resiliencia frente a shocks.
La OCDE mide solo la parte visible del iceberg.
No basta con aranceles.
No basta con subsidios puntuales (CHIPS Act, IRA).
Se necesita reformar el sistema financiero para que deje de premiar la especulación y vuelva a financiar industria.
Esto es políticamente difícil, pero económicamente inevitable
Los subsidios chinos, están integrados en la arquitectura sistémica de China,por esto son tan potentes y tan difíciles de replicar.
El modelo chino funciona como un ecosistema, no como una lista de políticas aisladas.
1. Los subsidios chinos no son “subsidios”: son un sistema completo
La mayoría de países entiende “subsidio” como:
una transferencia fiscal,
una rebaja de impuestos,
un crédito fiscal,
o una ayuda directa.
China opera en otro plano:sus subsidios son estructurales, no presupuestarios.
Son mecanismos que alteran:
el precio del capital,
el precio del suelo,
el precio de la energía,
el precio del transporte,
el precio del tipo de cambio,
y el precio del riesgo.
Esto es lo que hace que la OCDE, la UE y EE.UU. subestimen sistemáticamente la magnitud real del apoyo estatal chino
2.Subsidio financiero: el corazón del modelo
Este es el subsidio más grande del mundo, y casi nadie lo mide
¿Cómo funciona?
Tasas de interés reprimidas El Banco Popular de China fija tasas muy por debajo del nivel que surgiría en un mercado libre.
Asignación dirigida del crédito El crédito fluye hacia:
empresas industriales,
infraestructura,
manufactura avanzada,
empresas estatales estratégicas.
Represión del consumo Los hogares reciben:
tasas bajas en depósitos,
acceso limitado a crédito barato,
pocas alternativas de inversión.
Esto genera un trasvase masivo de renta desde los hogares hacia el sector productivo.
Efecto real:El coste de capital para la industria china es artificialmente bajo, a veces negativo en términos reales.
Este subsidio es más grande que todos los subsidios explícitos de EE.UU. y la UE juntos
3.Subsidio cambiario: el RMB como arma industrial
China mantiene el RMB:
estable,
predecible,
y frecuentemente infravalorado.
Esto funciona como:
impuesto a las importaciones,
subsidio a las exportaciones,
estabilizador macroeconómico,
protección contra shocks externos.
La OCDE no lo incluye porque es casi imposible estimar el “valor real” del RMB.
Pero su impacto es gigantesco
4. Subsidio energético: electricidad barata para la industria
China ofrece:
electricidad industrial a precios muy bajos,
tarifas diferenciadas por sector,
contratos a largo plazo,
prioridad de suministro.
Esto es especialmente crítico en:
acero,
aluminio,
baterías,
paneles solares,
semiconductores.
👉 La energía barata es un multiplicador industrial.
5. Subsidio logístico: infraestructura de clase mundial
China ha construido:
puertos gigantes,
autopistas,
trenes de alta velocidad,
redes logísticas integradas.
Todo financiado con:
deuda pública,
deuda de gobiernos locales,
bancos estatales.
El resultado:
costes logísticos ultrabajos,
tiempos de entrega rapidísimos,
economías de escala imposibles de replicar en Occidente.
6. Subsidio inmobiliario: suelo industrial barato
Los gobiernos locales pueden:
expropiar suelo,
recalificarlo,
venderlo barato a empresas industriales,
construir parques industriales llave en mano.
Esto reduce drásticamente:
el coste de implantación,
el coste de expansión,
el coste de operación.
7. Subsidio humano: educación técnica masiva
China produce:
más ingenieros que EE.UU., Europa y Japón juntos,
técnicos especializados,
mano de obra industrial disciplinada.
Esto no es casualidad: es una política de Estado.
8. Subsidio tecnológico: transferencia forzada + I+D estatal
China combina:
I+D pública masiva,
compras públicas estratégicas,
transferencia tecnológica obligatoria,
espionaje industrial,
joint ventures controladas.
Esto acelera la curva de aprendizaje industrial.
9. El subsidio más invisible: la coordinación estatal
China puede:
planificar a 10–20 años,
coordinar bancos, empresas y gobiernos locales,
movilizar recursos rápidamente,
absorber pérdidas durante años.
Occidente no puede hacer esto porque:
su sistema financiero es especulativo,
su política es cortoplacista,
su regulación es fragmentada.
10. Conclusión: China no subsidia industrias, subsidia el sistema entero
Por eso:
la OCDE mide solo el 10–20% del apoyo real,
EE.UU. y Europa no pueden competir solo con subsidios fiscales,
la relocalización occidental requiere reformar el sistema financiero, no solo dar ayudas
OECD MAGIC Database of Industrial Subsidies
Industrial subsidies have reached their highest levels since the global financial crisis. As a percentage of firms’ sales revenue, industrial subsidies amounted to 1.3% in 2024, which was the second highest level on record after the previous peak in 2009 during the global financial crisis. Subsidies for the 15 industrial sectors covered by the OECD Manufacturing Groups and Industrial Corporations (MAGIC) database reached USD 108 billion (nominal) in 2024.
Industrial firms based in China receive more subsidies than their competitors based everywhere else. Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received on average three to eight times more government support than firms based in the OECD, a conservative estimate. These subsidies were also considerably higher than the support received by firms based in non-OECD economies such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia.
Renewable energy equipment, semiconductors, and heavy industries receive relatively more subsidies than other industrial sectors. Between 2005 and 2024, the production of solar photovoltaic panels, semiconductors, aluminium, steel, and shipbuilding were – as a percentage of firms’ sales revenue – the top five recipients of subsidies across the 15 sectors covered in the OECD MAGIC database.
State enterprises play a large role as recipients and providers of subsidies. On average, state enterprises with state ownership above 25% are significantly larger recipients of industrial subsidies than their private competitors, especially for grants and below-market-borrowings. This stems partly from the fact that these companies are often found in heavy industries characterised by more debt financing and below-market-borrowings, and in China.
Industrial subsidies are shaping global markets. OECD research shows that around 22% of the global market share gains of firms that grew between 2005 and 2023 can be explained by the subsidies they received. For Chinese firms, almost 60% of their global market share gains can be explained by the subsidies received.
The OECD MAGIC database provides an unprecedented view of industrial subsidies at the level of individual firms, allowing for novel insights into the potential of industrial subsidies to influence global trade flows. The public MAGIC dashboard provides aggregate information on subsidies received by the largest firms across 15 industrial sectors from 2005‑24, tracking the evolution of grants, tax concessions, and below-market finance to firms over time and across regions.
In open economies, government support in the form of subsidies to economic activities has the potential to distort international markets. As a result, companies are no longer competing on a level playing field. This can result in less productive firms winning global market share at the expense of more innovative and efficient ones with implications over time for innovation, fair competition, and support for global trade. For these reasons, the use of subsidies has been disciplined in the multilateral trading system.
Reliable data on industrial subsidies is necessary to monitor what governments are doing worldwide and analyse how subsidies are shaping global markets. This can help countries build a shared understanding of the challenge, paving the way for co-operative efforts to find solutions.
Building on its longstanding work measuring subsidies across agriculture (OECD, 2025[1]), fisheries (OECD, 2023[2]), and fossil fuels (OECD, 2025[3]), the OECD has spent nearly a decade investing in measuring industrial subsidies. For the first time, the OECD is now releasing a public version of the OECD MAGIC (Manufacturing Groups and Industrial Corporations) database. The database includes subsidy estimates and financial information for 525 of the largest manufacturing groups globally over the period 2005-24 across 15 key industrial sectors, which together make up the bulk of global manufacturing. The public version of the database provides downloadable data on the value of subsidies across years, sectors, subsidy instruments, and geographical groupings.
The OECD MAGIC database takes a unique approach; it is not based on the subsidies governments disclose, but on the amounts that firms actually receive. This firm-level approach allows MAGIC to measure subsidies provided globally – even where governments are not transparent about the subsidies they provide – and to identify subsidies given at the subnational (city, county, state) level. Looking at what firms receive makes it possible to identify new forms of support, including subsidies provided in the form of below-market finance (cheap loans offered by state-owned banks), and to shed new light on the role of state enterprises as both important recipients and providers of subsidies. Finally, the firm-level approach demonstrates how subsidies are associated with companies’ sales revenue, providing direct evidence of their potential to confer a competitive advantage on recipients (detailed information on the methodology behind MAGIC available here).
This report accompanies the public release of the OECD MAGIC database and highlights the key findings based on the latest (2024) data. It outlines key trends across subsidy types, sectors, and regions and presents the results of OECD analysis on what these subsides mean for global markets. Snapshots of the situation in the 15 sectors covered by MAGIC are provided in Annex A. Future editions of this report will provide annual updates based on MAGIC data. Separate deep dives into individual sectors will also continue to be produced periodically. The results presented do not prejudge the outcome of any assessments that may be undertaken by investigating authorities or under the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement procedures on subsidies and countervailing measures
Subsidies have reached their highest levels since the global financial crisis of 2008-09 Industrial subsidies peaked in absolute terms in 2023 before declining slightly in 2024. As a share of firms’ sales revenue, subsidies reached 1.3% in 2024 — the second highest level on record after 2009 (Figure 1, right). The 2009 peak, however, coincided with a severe global recession, when a 15% year‑over‑year collapse in sales mechanically inflated the subsidy‑to‑revenue ratio. This was not the case in 2023-24, which indicates the recent increase in industrial subsidies to be more structural. In nominal terms, subsidies across the 15 industrial sectors covered by the OECD MAGIC database totalled USD 108 billion in 2024 (Figure 1, left), or USD 94 billion at constant 2015 prices. Both figures represent the second‑highest levels observed to date, following the record high in 2023.
All three subsidy instruments covered by the OECD MAGIC database matter, with government grants, corporate income tax concessions, and below-market-borrowings (BMB) having each contributed a sizable amount to the total industrial subsidies measured over the period 2005-24. Of these three instruments, BMB appear to play a more countercyclical role, having increased in times of crisis or to rescue firms in distress (e.g. the rescue of U.S. carmakers in 2009 or the People’s Republic of China’s (hereafter “China”) support for its heavy industries in 2015-16). This may be due to firms experiencing worsening financing conditions and tighter access to credit during crisis times or to the relative speed and ease with which BMB can be deployed in emergency situations compared with grants and tax concessions
Many tax concessions also require firms to be earning a profit for them be effective and are therefore of limited help in rescuing lossmaking companies. Subsidy levels and types vary across economies From a geographical standpoint, industrial firms based in China tend to receive more subsidies relative to their revenues than their competitors based everywhere else. Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received on average three to eight times more government support than firms based in the OECD (Figure 2, left). These subsidies were also considerably higher than the support received by firms based in non-OECD economies such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, which were comparable in relative terms to the subsidies received by companies based in North America. The right-hand side of Figure 2 reveals that in almost all regions industrial subsidies were higher in 2024 than in average over the period covered by the database (Figure 2, right). That said, the difference between subsidies received by Chinese firms and firms elsewhere remained higher in 2024
Subsidy transparency is crucial for trust in global markets, but declining
Lack of transparency remains a key challenge for understanding the scope and scale of industrial subsidies and many governments’ poor track record in this area has been a key motivation behind the firm-level methodology of the OECD MAGIC database.
Article 25.1 of the WTO’s Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement requires Members to notify their subsidies annually, yet compliance has remained low. While the number of Members complying with the notification obligation remained fairly stable over the 1995‑2025 period, the number of Members not making any notification rose sharply from 26 (in 1995) to 117 (in 2025).6 While this may partly reflect the technical difficulties and capacity limitations that some WTO Members face, the percentage of Members that did not make any notification rose from 23% (in 1995) to 70% (in 2025) which implies a systemic issue.7
Although a number of WTO Members do notify their subsidies, their notifications may be incomplete. As the obligation to notify is built around the definition of subsidy in Articles 1 and 2 of the SCM Agreement, disagreement about the scope of the definition have led to different expectations about the completeness of notifications, which have in cases not included subsidies granted by subnational levels of government. As those subsidies can be considerable, the lack of completeness erodes the usefulness of these notifications. In this context, the use of firm-level data offers a complementary lens, which helps improve clarity on the global scope and scale of industrial subsidies despite the lack of sufficient government transparency.
Rules on corporate disclosures normally remain within the purview of private actors and accounting standard-setting bodies but governments have nevertheless a useful role to play. In one example, in 2017, Italy published legislation requiring all companies receiving subsidies to publish the amounts they obtained from Italian authorities in their financial statements (OECD, 2023[2]). There are also encouraging signs that accounting standard-setting bodies are themselves expanding their rules on subsidy disclosure by companies. For instance, in 2021, the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board introduced a rule requiring all business entities following the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to report the government assistance they obtained in the notes to their financial statements. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has responsibility for enforcing the GAAP, which effectively makes subsidy disclosure a mandatory requirement for US-based companies. Sustainability reporting by firms has also evolved to better account for government financial assistance, with the Global Reporting Initiative’s 2016 standard on “Economic Performance” requiring companies to report the value of the financial assistance they received from any government over a given period. These different initiatives have visibly improved the quality of subsidy disclosures by companies in a context where governments are increasing the level of support they provide to their manufacturers.
However, improvements in firm-level subsidy disclosures have not been universal. Notably, there has been a trend toward less granular subsidy disclosures and a lesser availability of financial statements for firms based in China. Where companies previously disclosed detailed lists of their government grants, many are now only disclosing one aggregate heading under the “other income” category in their financial statements. Meanwhile, the financial statements of large unlisted SEs are becoming increasingly difficult to access. Examples include large state-owned actors in China’s aerospace and defence industry – namely the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), and the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) – for which financial statements are no longer available online as of the early 2020s. For this reason, the OECD MAGIC database is unable to provide estimates of subsidies for aerospace companies based in China for the year 2024.
China is, however, not alone in having recently reduced the availability of corporate disclosures. In the case of the Russian Federation (hereafter “Russia”), several large manufacturing firms have stopped releasing their financial statements since the country’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, citing in particular the country’s new Federal Law No. 1102 of 4 July 2023 “[o]n the specifics of Disclosure and (or) Provision of Information Subject to Disclosure and (or) Provision in Accordance with the Requirements of the Federal Law ‘On Joint-Stock Companies’ and the Federal Law ‘On the Securities Market’.”
While firms’ financial disclosures are primarily meant for investors and to enable the sound functioning of capital markets, they nonetheless serve a broader purpose. Imperfect or unavailable financial disclosures from firms hamper the public’s ability to monitor the economic performance of key actors in the global economy generating uncertainty as to whether firms are competing on a level playing field
Greater availability of data on industrial subsidies does not only matter for monitoring the global scope and scale of such subsidies, but it also enables analysis of what these subsidies mean for global markets. Recent OECD work has shown the subsidies captured in the OECD MAGIC database to have increased the global market share of recipient firms between 2005 and 2023 (OECD, 2025[8]). The published estimates imply that around 22% of the global market share gains of firms that grew between 2005 and 2023 can be explained by the subsidies they received. For Chinese firms, almost 60% of their global market share gains can be explained by the subsidies they received (Box 1).
Box 1).
OECD work (OECD, 2025[8]) has shown that higher levels of subsidies lead to an increase in firms’ global market share. The analyses revealed an economically sizeable impact relative to observed small annual changes in market shares, with an increase of one percentage point in subsidies relative to revenue corresponding to between the 27th and 51st percentile of the observed distribution of annual absolute market share changes, depending on the estimation method.
Another way to understand the magnitude of the effect is to assess what proportion of actual market share shifts can be explained by subsidies. The expected change in market share resulting from subsidies can be defined and calculated as the regression coefficient of interest multiplied by the firm’s value for the subsidy intensity variable. Dividing this expected change by the observed change in market share gives a ratio capturing what share of the real-world market share shifts for a given firm can be explained by the subsidies it received.
Two features of the econometric model used make this simple calculation possible. First, the treatment was defined as the difference between a firm’s subsidies as a share of its revenue and the average subsidy intensity in its sector. Therefore, the average value of the independent variable is by construction zero. Second, the outcome variable of changes in market share must also average to zero across all firms in a sector, as one firm’s gain will necessarily be another firm’s loss. These two facts make it possible to focus only on the relative change induced by subsidies without incorporating absolute levels.
To account for, on the one hand, high levels of variability at the firm level and, on the other hand, the constraint that total market share changes must always sum to zero, the results of this exercise can be most meaningfully interpreted for subgroups of firms. For firms whose headquarters are located in China, the ratio between the hypothetical change predicted by their subsidy intensity relative to that of other firms is 59%. Looking at the subset of firms whose total change in market share between 2005 and 2023 (the period of analysis covered in the paper) was positive, the share of gains that can be explained is 22%.
While subsidies appear to have caused an increase in firms’ market share, they did not lead to any significant increase in their productivity and profitability. Altogether, this suggests that the gains in market share may have stemmed from subsidised firms’ ability to lower their prices, undercut their competitors, and deter them from making investments. Just like doping in sports, there is therefore a risk that subsidies result in less productive players winning unfairly at the expense of more innovative and efficient ones.1 This could eventually impose long-term costs on the global economy in the form of less innovation, product quality, and competition, even as consumers benefit in the short-term from the lower prices.
The link between subsidies and market shares suggests the possible emergence of concentration risks in global supply chains. Amongst the sectors covered by the OECD MAGIC database, a number became increasingly geographically concentrated between 2005 and 2024 (Figure 7). This is especially the case for the production of solar panels, shipbuilding, steel, and aluminium, where the share of global sales of Chinese firms grew significantly between 2005 and 2024.
The production of solar panels is a case in point, displaying both high levels of subsidies – as the most subsidised sector in MAGIC in relative terms (Figure 4) – and acute geographical concentration. Subsidies for the solar panel sector have notably translated into a build-up of production capacity significantly exceeding market demand, which caused a drop in solar module prices and led producers in 2024 to experience declining revenue, sizable losses, and job cuts (OECD, 2026[9]). This underscores that subsidies are not only a problem for trade partners and global markets but also potentially a source of domestic imbalances, inefficiencies in the allocation of resources, and fiscal pressures.
Moreover, subsidised production in one economy can impact suppliers in other economies even in the absence of trade, where the scale of subsidised production is such that it impacts global prices and renders other producers non-viable.
....
However, improvements in firm-level subsidy disclosures have not been universal. Notably, there has been a trend toward less granular subsidy disclosures and a lesser availability of financial statements for firms based in China. Where companies previously disclosed detailed lists of their government grants, many are now only disclosing one aggregate heading under the “other income” category in their financial statements.
Meanwhile, the financial statements of large unlisted SEs are becoming increasingly difficult to access. Examples include large state-owned actors in China’s aerospace and defence industry – namely the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), and the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) – for which financial statements are no longer available online as of the early 2020s. For this reason, the OECD MAGIC database is unable to provide estimates of subsidies for aerospace companies based in China for the year 2024.
China is, however, not alone in having recently reduced the availability of corporate disclosures. In the case of the Russian Federation (hereafter “Russia”), several large manufacturing firms have stopped releasing their financial statements since the country’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, citing in particula
Para quienes estén interesados en leer el estudio de la OCDE, pueden encontrarlo aquí:
- https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-magic-database-of-industrial-subsidies_ce94f33b-en.html
- https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-magic-database-of-industrial-subsidies_ce94f33b-en/full-report.html
- https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2026/05/oecd-magic-database-of-industrial-subsidies_3d51d749/ce94f33b-en.pdf
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. By using this work, you accept to be bound by the terms of this licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
