As we head into the holiday season, you should expect the next several articles to be related to supply chain issues. And nothing says festive supply chain more than an initiative straight from the White House to safeguard supply chains and ensure that everyone gets their gifts on time…only to be returned (more on this next week).
I enjoyed your thorough overview of Biden’s new legislation as the election nears. It seemed to me that you argued at one point that the plan doesn’t focus enough neither on the long run nor the short run. Is this contradictory, or is the initiative just ineffective in both regards? I also wonder about how the directive balances Buy American, decreasing our dependence on foreign nations, with maintaining supply chains abroad which strengthens America’s resilience in case of domestic issues. Love to hear your thoughts!
I am claiming that many of the solutions deal with the symptoms rather than some of the more structural issues. I am also claiming that most firms will not follow since in the short run, they will see no payoff from investing in resilience.
I was struck by the two things in this announcement.
1) The co-chair model. NEA would be broadly expected but the inclusion of the NSA struck me as novel and centers trade as a mechanism of national security more prominently than we've seen in the past 40-ish years.
2) How this announcement highlights the challenges of governing (or, I suppose, more bluntly: getting your agenda enacted) in a very poorly coordinated federal system. Every policy component of Bideonomics, which I broadly support, is asked to do multiple things simultaneously: protect worker rights, reshore good jobs, enhance national security, lower prices, improve resilience, etc. And while I can certainly see how the parts fit together and broadly interact to (partially) reinforce one another, it's a lot of objectives to embed in every policy.
It's a big policy announcement. Interested to watch the next phase as plan gets enacted (distorted, hammered out, whatever) into regs.
Thank you Professor Allon for your analysis on White House Directive on Supply Chain. Do you think its possible to incentivize companies to invest in Open APIs, selected data sharing in Supply chain similar to Open Banking?
Professor Allon,
I enjoyed your thorough overview of Biden’s new legislation as the election nears. It seemed to me that you argued at one point that the plan doesn’t focus enough neither on the long run nor the short run. Is this contradictory, or is the initiative just ineffective in both regards? I also wonder about how the directive balances Buy American, decreasing our dependence on foreign nations, with maintaining supply chains abroad which strengthens America’s resilience in case of domestic issues. Love to hear your thoughts!
I am claiming that many of the solutions deal with the symptoms rather than some of the more structural issues. I am also claiming that most firms will not follow since in the short run, they will see no payoff from investing in resilience.
Honestly, I’m just happy to see action being taken towards the supply chain by our government even if it’s just a first step.
Really enjoyed the read and learned a lot. Thank you!
Was waiting for your take on this announcement!
I was struck by the two things in this announcement.
1) The co-chair model. NEA would be broadly expected but the inclusion of the NSA struck me as novel and centers trade as a mechanism of national security more prominently than we've seen in the past 40-ish years.
2) How this announcement highlights the challenges of governing (or, I suppose, more bluntly: getting your agenda enacted) in a very poorly coordinated federal system. Every policy component of Bideonomics, which I broadly support, is asked to do multiple things simultaneously: protect worker rights, reshore good jobs, enhance national security, lower prices, improve resilience, etc. And while I can certainly see how the parts fit together and broadly interact to (partially) reinforce one another, it's a lot of objectives to embed in every policy.
It's a big policy announcement. Interested to watch the next phase as plan gets enacted (distorted, hammered out, whatever) into regs.
Great write-up! Really insightful.
Thanks Jeffrey and excellent points! it will be interesting to see how (or whether) it will be actually implemented.
Thank you Professor Allon for your analysis on White House Directive on Supply Chain. Do you think its possible to incentivize companies to invest in Open APIs, selected data sharing in Supply chain similar to Open Banking?