![]() Shows you how much I know! - or perhaps, how much things have changed.) This was, it seemed to me, about the worst case for policy - a problem that was at once both extraordinarily hard for government to solve, and likely to take care of itself on its own before long. (Full disclosure: When someone mentioned to me early in the Biden administration that there was interest in dealing with the chip shortage by fostering a US industry, I thought it was a silly idea that would go nowhere. This is not only about climate - the disruptions to global supply chains during the pandemic and, more worryingly, a renewed sense of rivalry with China, have strengthened the case for support for key sectors of the economy. ![]() The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (along with other similar measures) seems to mark a decisive turn toward industrial policy, in the US at least. In recent years, though, the debate seems to have been shifting rather rapidly towards what I have called an investment-focused approach. Government provides the public interest with an abstract monetary representation, and then private businesses (or “markets”) will translate that representation into whatever concrete changes to production are called for. Not so long ago, the consensus on climate policy, at the high table at least, was that carbon pricing was it. The question of the moment is industrial policy. This person in the hallway - are they the boss, or a customer, or maybe someone in need of emergency medical assistance? Am I sure I have a job? Am I even supposed to be in here? Whereas here in the heterodox world, it’s like you’ve let yourself in through a gap in the fence and you’re wondering, is this place a construction site, or is something being demolished, or is it an archaeological dig? I think this is my desk, but it could be some weird art object, or possibly part of the ventilation system. There’s the research frontier ok, we’ve advanced it a little bit. You take some papers from your inbox and put them in your outbox. You drive to work, park in the garage, take the elevator up to your office. Sometimes I think being a normal economist must be like one of those classic office jobs. Hopefully the content will be more timely in the future!) All substack content is free you can subscribe to the newsletter version here. Going forward, hopefully the content will be more timely. (I wrote this post about two weeks ago, but then took a while getting the Substack actually launched. JW Mason on At Barron’s: With the Debt Ceiling Deal, the Administration Takes a Step Backward.Owen paine on Varieties of Industrial Policy.JW Mason on Varieties of Industrial Policy.At Barron’s: With the Debt Ceiling Deal, the Administration Takes a Step Backward.
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