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Mike Munger: Industrial policy is the set of conditions in which a market economy operates. He says it's possible to talk about that as being the entire set of legal and financial infrastructure within which the economy plays out. We based our conversation on an article you've published in the Journal of Law Economics and Policy.

Economist and political scientist Michael Munger of Duke University talks about industrial policy with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Munger argues that in a democracy, the default outcome for industrial policy is crony capitalism--attempts to improve on that outcome either by appointing experts or eliminating cronyism are going to fail for political reasons. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the reliability of Munger's claim and what options are left for dissatisfied reformers.