Executive Certificate in Industrial Policy (12-Weeks)

Tariffs, reshoring, the CHIPS Act, EV subsidies, government stakes in technology firms – industrial policy is rapidly increasing in importance in the U.S. and around the world. It is becoming crucial both for making new policy and for understanding how the existing economy functions. Whether on Capitol Hill, in domestic government agencies, in America’s trade relations with the rest of the world, or across the media and the think tanks, it is impacting more areas every day.

Unfortunately, no American university has offered an introductory course on the subject. Until now. Our program was created in collaboration with one of the leading authorities in the field — Ian Fletcher, coauthor of Industrial Policy for the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2025) — who will teach its inaugural cohort. It is designed to give people with a background in conventional neoliberal economics a solid grounding in the different way of thinking about the economy that successful industrial policy requires.

Beginning by grounding industrial policy in conventional economic theory, students will then examine real-world applications through case studies of nations, industries, technologies, and policies. They will analyze both successes and failures of industrial policy and, while the course centers on an American audience, will draw lessons from roughly half a dozen other countries' experiences. By the end, students—whether academics researching industrial policy or government professionals tasked with implementing it—will come away with both deeper scholarly expertise and a network of peers working in the field.

This course requires an introductory but not expert familiarity with conventional economics.

Ian Fletcher has spent more than two decades making the case against free trade orthodoxy and for a serious American industrial policy. He serves on the advisory board of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, where he previously worked as senior economist. He wrote Free Trade Doesn't Work and The Conservative Case Against Free Trade, and co-authored, with Marc Fasteau, Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries, published by Cambridge University Press. He studied at Columbia University and the University of Chicago and lives in San Francisco.

Twelve weeks, world-class professor, a small cohort of rising leaders in industrial policy.

Each week alternates between instructor-led lecture and candidate-led seminar. One week, Fletcher lectures — unpacking the frameworks, the case studies, the arguments that actually move policy. The next week, you attend a seminar in which you test those frameworks against your own research in front of a small cohort of peers. Along the way, enjoy four one-on-one advising sessions with Fletcher that will push your thinking further than a classroom ever could.