Along with Joseph Stiglitz and Aaron Edlin, DeLong is co-editor of The Economists' Voice, and has been co-editor of the widely read Journal of Economic Perspectives. He is also the author of a textbook, Macroeconomics, the second edition of which he coauthored with Martha Olney. He writes a monthly syndicated op-ed column for Project Syndicate.

As an official in the Treasury Department in the Clinton administration, he worked on the 1993 budget, on the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, on the North American Free Trade Agreement, on the unsuccessful health care reform effort, and on other policies.[citation needed]

DeLong is a prolific blogger. His main blog is Grasping Reality with Both Hands, which covers political, technical, and economic issues as well as criticism of their coverage in the media.

DeLong is both a liberal in the modern American political sense and a free trade neo-liberal. He has cited Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Lawrence Summers, Andrei Shleifer, and Milton Friedman as the economists who have had the greatest influence on his views. In fact, his dozen most important papers have been co-authored with Summers, and several of the best papers of Summers are those co-authored with DeLong.

DeLong lives in suburban Lafayette, California, and is married to Ann Marie Marciarille. AARP Health and Aging Policy Research Fellow at Pacific McGeorge's Capital Center for Government Law and Policy. He received his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, receiving the latter in 1987. Before moving to Berkeley, he taught at Harvard, Boston University, and MIT.

On March 5, 2008, DeLong endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

DeLong is also a harsh critic of his Berkeley colleague, John Yoo, a law professor who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush. Yoo is perhaps most famous for authoring the torture memos authorizing the Bush administration to use torture during the war on terror, and crafting the unitary executive theory, which dictates that, due to his powers and responsibilities as commander-in-chief, only the President has the ability to craft and interpret foreign policy and security strategy. DeLong wrote a letter to the Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau calling for Yoo's dismissal dated February 17, 2009.

De Long maintains a political commentary site called Brad DeLong's Egregious Moderation. In addition, DeLong writes for Shrillblog, which collects stories and articles about critics of what the authors perceive as fundamental dishonesty on the part of advocates of "conservative" policies in the Republican Party and the Bush administration. According to DeLong's personal report, the blog originated in a conversation among DeLong, Tyler Cowen, and Andrew Northrup regarding the use of the term "shrill" as a criticism of New York Times columnist and fellow academic economist Paul Krugman.

Major publications listed on Brad DeLong's Academic CV include: