Susan Helper, Ph.D. – Frank Tracy Carlton Professor of Economics, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University

Dear Colleagues:

When I hear “Bidenomics” I think of three things.

The first is “Obamacare.” Many people began using each term as a negative label. In the case of Obamacare, it referred not to anything that was actually happening (the term was common long before the Affordable Care Act was being implemented) but a bogey-man: the “government takeover” that supposedly threatened peoples’ health care. When Republicans talk about Bidenomics, in contrast, they are blaming the administration for things that have already occurred. They take everything bad that people might think is happening in the economy, and slap Joe Biden’s name on it.

My second thought for years has been, “I’d really like to get Sue Helper to talk about this at the Friday Lunch.” Because, as I explain below, there really is such a thing as “Bidenomics,” it’s not just a label thought up by opponents, and Professor Helper has been a major contributor to the line of work that has brought us to this point.

In short, Bidenomics is a policy approach that includes a wide range of measures and is based on judgments about what is most important for the economy. That also means that some other variables – such as the level of budget deficits, or encouraging “entrepreneurship” with low taxes – are much less important than in other theories.

For over three decades Professor Helper has done research that addresses the importance of manufacturing within the US economy, how global supply chains affect regional economies, the advantages or not of “outsourcing” internationally vs. producing in the United States, how more positive labor relations might strengthen companies’ bottom lines, and how US manufacturing could be revitalized. During the Obama Administration she served on the staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) and then as Chief Economist for the Department of Commerce. In the Biden Administration she served as Senior Economist for the CEA and then Senior Advisor for Industrial Strategy with the White House Office of Management and Budget. Her work is closely linked to the Biden administration’s policies, so few guests would be as able to explain the “what” and the “why” of Bidenomics.

Please pardon a bit more background on why I find her work so central (and obviously from her appointments, so do colleagues in the administration).

The third thing I think when I hear “Bidenomics” is: “it’s about time.”

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, demand management through fiscal policy, or Keynesianism, seemed finally to be accepted as the way government should try to help the economy. Even Richard Nixon seemed to agree, rejecting his party’s long emphasis on balancing the budget even during economic downturns. Almost immediately thereafter however, – partly due to effects of the first oil shock – faith in Keynesian demand management was shaken.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as I explained in my first book, three alternatives were promoted. One, monetarism, claimed that the economy could be favorably stabilized in the short term by managing the money supply, rather than the budget. The second, “supply side economics,” claimed that the key to a better economy was to encourage “supply” rather than “demand,” and that “supply” would be encouraged by increasing the rewards of investment – basically with tax cuts on wealthier Americans. The two were merged in the Reagan administration’s economic policies.

The third view did not get so far. It was called “industrial policy,” and it focused especially on the decline in manufacturing jobs with good wages. From this perspective, the basic question was what government could do to promote good jobs, and that would likely involve far more direct attempts to affect economic activity than followed from Keynesian fiscal policy, monetarism, or the conservative “supply side” view – all of which relied on managing large aggregates (taxes, spending, money supply) though they disagreed about how to do that. From one perspective, there was nothing new about this approach. “Proponents of mobilizing US government support for domestic manufacturing – and creating a homegrown industrial policy,” a 2021 briefing from the Peterson Institute for International Economics explained, “may not realize it, but they are channeling an approach first introduced in 1791 by Alexander Hamilton.” Support for specific industries was a major theme of 19th century policy, through the tariff. But as industrial policy ideas were being developed in the late 1970s, they met a fervent pushback from the best-known mainstream Democratic policy economists. They did not want the government interfering with markets to that extent, “picking winners.” One of the most influential told me that he and his colleagues advised Walter Mondale to emphasize the budget deficit in his 1984 presidential campaign because they worried that, otherwise, he would focus on trade restrictions to protect industrial sectors.

The industrial policy approach therefore faded as an influence on policy-making. It became the Road Not Taken. But scholarly work continued to be done, and there was occasional modest legislation. And over the past two decades the further hollowing-out of American manufacturing (as an employer and source of middle-class incomes) made Democratic politicians far more willing to define the economy’s main problems as a need for public investment in both physical and human capital.

Many of these ideas are the background for Biden’s “Build Back Better” initiatives. By the administration’s own account this past June, there is a “Bidenomics” and it has “three key pillars”: “Making smart public investments in America,” “Empowering and educating workers to grow the middle class,” and “Promoting competition to lower costs and help entrepreneurs and small businesses thrive,” which includes among other things “full and aggressive enforcement of our antitrust laws.”

These are the kinds of policies that Professor Helper will help us understand.

In-Person and Virtual Attendance

We will meet this week in our regular location, the Dampeer Room on the second floor of Kelvin Smith Library.

We continue also to offer the meetings on Zoom. We do require pre-registering so as to avoid “zoom-bombing.” The pre-registration link is posted below.

The discussion begins at 12:30 p.m., but the room should be open no later than Noon. We try to have beverages and refreshments set up soon after that. Participants should be able to sign on to Zoom also by Noon. But please remember not much will be happening online until the talk begins at 12:30 pm. Please also be prepared to show identification when entering Kelvin Smith Library.

Zoom participants should speak up when asked for questions or comments, or submit thoughts through Zoom’s chat function. Please keep yourself muted until you are choosing to speak.

Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. When you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. If you do not get the newsletter, you should also be able to get the information each Monday by checking http://fridaylunch.case.edu Then if you choose you can use the contact form on that website to request the registration link.

This week’s Zoom link for registration is:

https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMqdeqpqDksEtxa8ZS8sVRW_yS3gNA-BtYO

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please also e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about arrangements or any suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you.

Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

Susan Helper is the Frank Tracy Carlton Professor of Economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. She was formerly Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Commerce and a member of the White House Staff. She has served as chair of the Economics Department, and has been a visiting scholar at University of Oxford, the University of California (Berkeley), Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research focuses on the globalization of supply chains, and on how U.S. manufacturing might be revitalized. Dr. Helper received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard and her BA from Oberlin College in Economics, Government and Spanish.

* Kelvin Smith Library requires all entrants to show identification when entering the building, unless they have a university i.d. that they can magnetically scan. We are sorry if that seems like a hassle, but it has been Library policy for a while in response to security concerns. Please do not complain to the library staff at the entrance, who are just doing their jobs.

Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

February 23: Taiwan and China: Questions and Answers. With Julia C. Strauss, Ph.D., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (speaker will participate by Zoom).

March 1: Inside State Energy Politics. With Daniel Gray, Founder and Director of Local Strategies, Citizens Utility Board of Ohio.

March 8: The 2024 Elections. With Colin Swearingen, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science, John Carroll University.

March 15: Spring Break

March 22: Thinking About Generative AI. With Satya Sahoo, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Science and Director, Biomedical and Health Informatics Ph.D. Program.

March 29: The Impact of Neighborhood and Racial Violence on Black Youth Developmental Outcomes. With Dexter Voisin, Ph.D., Dean of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

April 5: WTFentanyl? What We Need to Know About the Current Opioid Crisis. With Ryan Marino, MD, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry.

April 12: Conspiracy Theories and Climate Change Skepticism in Europe. With Andreas Sobisch, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science, John Carroll University.

April 19: Why Our Children Struggle in School: Going Beyond the ADHD Metaphor. With Arthur Lavin MD, FAAP. Alternate Room: Kelvin Smith Library LL06

April 26: What Does It Mean for Us? Local Needs and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. With Howard Maier, FAICP, Adjunct Professor of Political Science.