Brad DeLong's Unsatisfactory Case for an Industrial Policy

In a syndicated column titled “America Has No Industrial Policy,” September 5, 2024, J. Bradford DeLong, an economics professor at UC Berkeley, argues that we need an industrial policy. I think we don’t, and I think it’s a bad idea, but what I found striking is that his article is shot through with incorrect statements that matter for his case.

I’ll deal…