Rethinking the Economic Borders of the State

In this essay, Dieter Helm argues that a new direction is needed which owes more to the rules-based order of Hayek than the short-run demand management of Keynes. New thinking about how the state should invest in economic and social infrastructure to create growth while preventing the depletion of resources is required, with a national  balance sheet and investment rules at its core.

Helm argues that sustainability, or the idea that the state should arrange matters so that future generations are no worse off than current ones, should be an organising concept for state action in the future.