"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg cover image

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg

The Economist's Mike Bird Debates Noah on Industrial Policy

Aug 15, 2023
Mike Bird, Asia business and finance editor at The Economist, debates industrial policy with Noah, advocating for market-driven resource allocation over government intervention. They explore the impact of recent U.S. legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act on manufacturing jobs and the challenges posed by automation. The discussion also highlights the geopolitical implications of industrial policy, particularly concerning China's influence and the importance of resilience in supply chains, especially in sectors like semiconductors.
01:22:25

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Finding the balance between decarbonization and resilience against China is a key challenge in industrial policy.
  • Pricing tradeoffs and assigning costs to social goals is crucial in industrial policy decision-making.

Deep dives

The importance of understanding the tradeoffs in industrial policy

In this podcast episode, the speakers discuss the need to understand the tradeoffs involved in industrial policy. While there are multiple objectives such as decarbonization and resilience against China, finding the balance between these goals is challenging. The podcast raises the question of whether it is better to have no metric for measuring the social cost of carbon and resilience or to at least attempt to understand the numbers involved. The importance of pricing these tradeoffs is highlighted, with carbon taxation being seen as a way to determine the cost society is willing to pay for decarbonization. The lack of a clear pricing mechanism for other objectives of industrial policy is identified as a potential issue.

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