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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Heather Stewart

If Rachel Reeves wants growth, improved community cohesion could be essential

Photo of a Sure Start nursery centre with children playing with toys
Sure Start centres are just one example of a community hub that brings people together. Photograph: Dennis Gilbert/Alamy

Windfarms, train lines, science labs – when policymakers think about the ingredients for kickstarting the UK’s sagging economy, they tend to imagine tangible bits of infrastructure. But two of the UK’s most eminent public economists have banded together to urge Rachel Reeves to reconsider another dimension of the UK’s makeup: social capital.

Andy Haldane is the former chief economist at the Bank of England, now chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts. David Halpern is the man behind the so-called nudge unit, which brought behavioural economics into the policy mainstream.

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