Bart van Ark

An economy doesn’t operate by market forces alone—it’s dependent on actions of business and consumers and government. There is a clear role for government in creating an environment in which business gets new opportunities. Yes, government should get out of spaces where it doesn’t have to be and let business do its thing. But government needs to be where there are so-called external effects, which means that additional positive value gets created from investments that businesses don’t make on their own. For example, spending on basic research is often not done by many businesses because they cannot internalize all the benefits from the investment.

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