J. Bradford DeLong

From the standpoint of America and the world, Tesla is a historically important technology-generating enterprise – the tip of the spear in the transition away from internal-combustion-engine vehicles

In the United States, the long-term real safe interest rate is the key mechanism influencing both the incentive to build and the balance of net exports

In a recent Vox essay outlining my thinking about US President Donald Trump’s emerging trade policy, I pointed out that a “bad” trade deal such as the North American Free Trade Agreement is responsible for only a vanishingly small fraction of lost US manufacturing jobs over the past 30 years

In the two decades from 1979 to 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States drifted downward, from 19 million to 17 million. But over the next decade, between 1999 and 2009, the number plummeted to 12 million. That more dramatic decline has given rise to the idea that the US economy suddenly stopped working – at least for blue-collar males – at the turn of the century