FDR Had Macro Tools, We Need Micro Tools

With the development of Gross Domestic Product, New Deal state planners had the macroeconomic tools they needed to take on the Great Depression. To better direct its firehose of public investment, the modern state needs new microeconomic tools

Practically everyone has heard of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For some, it is the yardstick for economic progress. For others, GDP is everything wrong with how economic policy is constituted—a number that reduces the myriad of welfare effects and experiences to a thing called “growth.” 

GDP is both simpler and far more complicated than any of these thi…