How Industrial Policy Gets Done: Frontline Lessons from Three Federal Officials
I interviewed @katenrg @RonnieChatterji & Satyam Khanna about their time helping set up the offices that are building middle-out economics.
🧵 rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/h…
For arguably the first time since the Roosevelt administration, there's an acknowledged and massive effort to influence the composition and practices of industries operating in the US.
Trillions in public and private capital are moving into communities all over the 🇺🇸.
These industrial policy efforts are not falling from the sky: they're being driven by real people, trying to solve problems in real time.
In this brief, we were interested in one group of said people: the advisors in federal agencies like @ENERGY @EPA & @CommerceGov.
In our conversation, we get into how Kate, Satyam, & Ronnie ended up in the industrial policy trenches, and which (if any) "market failures" the new offices they helped set up are trying to solve.
A lot of the big Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act projects didn't start getting announced until early 2024 - 1.5 years after the bills were signed.
Our talks revealed why: the budgets and personnel needed to manage the programs entailed major shifts in mission & structure.
Today, the initial results of the industrial policy investments are beginning to be felt.
After years of offshored production, the US will soon be home to all five of the world’s leading-edge chips makers. No other economy in the world has more than two. commerce.gov/news/blog/2024…
There's been six quarters of record-breaking manufacturing construction.
New clean energy factories are being built in places hurt by deindustrialization, as well as places like Moses Lake, that are making clean energy a part of their regional advantage. nwpb.org/2022/12/20/dep…
There are reasons to think these investments will help make the US' commitment to decarbonization credible and enduring, as the benefits are flowing across red and blue states, urban and rural areas.
For more on the lessons learned from the early years of these new industrial policy offices, check out the full brief @rooseveltinst. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/h…
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In an election year where both political parties have deployed tariffs as a tool of statecraft, @DemJournal asked @ENPancotti @mattyglesias and me to debate the pros and cons, when tariffs work, and when they are damaging.
🧵 democracyjournal.org/magazine/74/ar…
Liz and I were assigned the "pro-tariff" side of the debate, though we offer caveats.
Our main argument is that it's too easy to put tariffs in a politics/public choice box, when in fact there are long established market failure reasons for their use.
Moreover, having taking the fork in the road towards industrial policy subsidies to internalize positive externalities from decarbonization, it would have been unwise policy/an abdication of fiduciary responsibility to allow imports to wipe out new clean industries.
This is the result of a 4 year review since the beginning of the Biden administration, which has been evaluating whether various Chinese policies comport with US trade laws.
Fantastic panel @HarvardMWC on lessons we can learn from global experiences with industrial policy, with @rodrikdani @straightedge @myrto_kaloup and @rohlamba.
Myrto talking Chinese shipbuilding excess capacity. Has 50-70% market share today.
@Rohan_Sandhu Myrto says Chinese shipbuilding not efficient when taken on their own, but had clear benefits in terms of outward exports / lowering transportation costs / enhancing military capacity. nber.org/papers/w26075
NEW from me @RooseveltFwd: How Biden's comments on US Steel's tie up with Japan's Nippon company indicate what a Foreign Policy for the Middle Class might look like in practice. rooseveltforward.org/2024/04/03/bid…
The idea of reorienting foreign economic policy to build labor power and combat inequality was articulated by @JakeSullivan46 @jennifermharris and others in a series of essays and reports in 2019-20. foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/07/ame…
This doesn't mean that traditional diplomacy has to die out. Indeed, as @dimi and @KanaInagaki report, even after Biden's comments, the US and Japan are slated to make the biggest upgrade to their alliance in 60 years. ft.com/content/df9999…
BREAKING from @AP: @Energy agency announces $6 billion to slash emissions in industrial facilities.
@JenMcDermottAP @anniesartor @SecGranholm @alizaidi46 and me on why this is game changing, and could allow the US to catch up/ lead on industrial decarb. apnews.com/article/climat…
The mix of projects funded here is exciting, including a range of technologies to be deployed by US leader @CLE_CLF, and even projects by Sweden's SSAB. energy.gov/oced/industria…
"EVEN IF YOU’RE CONVINCED that unionized labor is sclerotic and expensive and an impediment to production, cutting them out creates the very real risk of losing the coalition necessary to sustain green industrial policy."
@ddayen responds to @ezraklein. prospect.org/economy/2023-0…
I am sympathetic to Klein's wish to live in a society with more corporatist labor arrangements.
https://t.co/5jiumaovWrnytimes.com/2023/07/16/opi…