Public policy, community ownership and clean energy

This paper considers policies for promoting productive investments in the USA, especially as regards the project of building a clean energy economy. The four main policies examined are (i) expanding public investments throughout the economy and gaining the crowding-in benefits that will accrue from such investments, (ii) refocusing the successful but ad hoc, US model of industrial policies, (iii) advancing this agenda of public investments, industrial policy and cooperative/community ownership in ways that benefit all regions of the US equitably and (iv) promoting cooperative and community-based ownership forms, as alternatives to the private corporation.