sectorwill

Sectorwill is a theoretical framework used in economic and policy analysis to describe the collective willingness of different economic sectors to pursue policy measures or investment paths. It treats sectors as active agents with distinct incentives, risk tolerances, and transition costs, aggregating these into an overall sectoral will that can influence policy outcomes and investment flows.

Origin and etymology: The term merges sector with will; it appears in speculative policy literature and think-tank reports from the mid-2010s onward, where researchers sought to formalize sectoral responses to structural changes such as decarbonization, automation, or trade realignments.

Formulation: Sectorwill is typically modeled as a vector of sectoral willingness scores, derived from indicators such as expected return on investment, regulatory ease, supply chain resilience, labor market adaptability, and perceived risk of stranded assets. These scores feed into a policy- and investment-forecasting model via a sector-to-policy mapping.

Applications: It has been used in scenario planning for climate transition, industrial policy design, and risk assessment for large-scale infrastructure programs, helping analysts understand which sectors might push for faster change and which may resist or lag.

Limitations: Critics point to measurement challenges, heterogeneity within sectors, data gaps, and the possibility that sectorwill oversimplifies complex political economy dynamics. Others note that sectorwill assumes relatively coherent sectoral preferences, which may not exist in practice.

See also: multi-criteria decision analysis; policy mix; economic sectors; transition risk; social choice theory.