William H. Janeway at Project Syndicate:
Whether mobilizing for war or (re)constructing advanced manufacturing capabilities in peacetime, success turns on the functioning of complex supply chains. But this truth was long forgotten – or at least under-appreciated. Not until recent supply-chain shocks did academics, policymakers, and others start paying more attention to the complicated, barely studied “meso” (middle) domain between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
While microeconomics deals with the behavior of individual agents (firms, consumers, workers, investors), macroeconomics addresses the behavior of statistical aggregates (as represented by GDP, national income, and so forth). But the space between has largely been neglected, particularly with respect to how it serves as the dynamic context in which economic policies play out. One source of this lacuna may be the simplistic faith that markets can be trusted to deliver the most efficient solution, or at least trusted more than corruptible politicians.
The issue that has called attention to this domain has been the fragility of an economy whose structure has been optimized for efficiency.
More here.