ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how government fiscal policy and the use of market mechanisms can support a sustainable society. Specific policies are cited, but by way of example rather than as a blueprint for government policy. As the discipline of ‘green economics’ described by Cato (2009) gains credibility we should expect ‘distinctive new solutions’ to emerge (Kennet and Heinemann 2006), influenced by Anderson (2006), Reardon (2007) and others. The New Economics Foundation, an independent think tank based in the UK, is at the forefront of attempts to define ‘the new economics’. A powerful critique of the contradictions in conventional economics has been developed (Boyle and Simms 2009) but a coherent and workable alternative economic paradigm has yet to evolve.
