This essay is about an important area in which there has been major rethinking-industrial policy, by which the authors mean government policies directed at affecting the economic structure of the economy. The standard argument was that markets were efficient, so there was no need for government...

After long suffering from benign neglect if not outright contempt, industrial policy is almost fashionable again. The global financial and economic crisis known as the Great Recession has forced researchers and policy makers to confront the reality that market forces alone generally do not lead...