Can the Government Manage Car Companies Without Micro-Managing?
John Paul MacDuffie of the University of Pennsylvania and and Susan Helper of Case Western Reserve University filed this guest post. They both work with the International Motor Vehicle Program. Today, two Obama administration officials will be called before the Senate Banking Committee to discuss the impact of federal assistance to the auto industry. The administration has been working hard to convince the public that the government intends “a hands-off approach” that will end with “getting out quickly.” There is peril here. Two issues have received the most attention as conflicting with a desire to have a speedy return to profitability: How many small cars should General Motors build? And where should it make them? (GM would like to build small cars in Mexico and possibly China for import to the United States, but agreed to a United Auto Workers condition of having one more U.S. assembly plant continuing to build those products.) Smaller issues also abound — there are already tales o
