The U.S. is losing the international competition for good jobs and high-value industries because most of official Washington believes trade should be free, the dollar should float, and that innovation is the responsibility of the private sector alone.
In this book, the authors make the bold case that these laissez-faire ideas have failed and that a robust industrial policy is the only way for America to remain prosperous and secure.
Trump and Biden have enacted some of its elements, but it needs to be made systematic and comprehensive, including tariffs to protect key industries, a competitive exchange rate, and federal support for commercialization—not just invention—of new technologies.
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Timely, meticulously researched, and bipartisan, this impressive analysis replaces misunderstandings about industrial policy with
lucid explanations of its underlying economic theory, the tools that implement it, and its successes (and failures) in America and abroad.
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It examines key industries of the past and future – textiles, steel, automobiles, television, semiconductors, space, aviation, robotics, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. It concludes with a realistic, actionable policy roadmap.
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A work of rigor and ambition, Industrial Policy for the United States is essential reading.​[more...]
Marc Fasteau
is a vice-chair of the Coalition for a Prosperous America. Before founding an insurance company acquired by Progressive, he was a partner at Dillon Read & Co., a New York investment bank, and previously a congressional economic staffer. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was on the Law Review. He lives in New York City.
Ian Fletcher
is on CPA’s Advisory Board. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work and coauthor of The Conservative Case against Free Trade. He has been senior economist at the Coalition, a research fellow at the US Business and Industry Council, an economist in private practice, and an IT consultant. He was educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He lives in San Francisco.
