Contributor(s): Professor Sir Tim Besley, Professor Amartya Sen | An effective state promotes freedom and the well-being of its citizens. This lecture will discuss the importance of norms, values and institutions in supporting state effectiveness drawing on recent developments in social science. As well as making connections to Amartya Sen's ideas, the lecture will reflect on some of the major policy challenges that the world faces in the turbulent times that we are living through. Tim Besley is School Professor of Economics of Political Science and Sir W. Arthur Lewis Professor of Development Economics in the Department of Economics at LSE. He is also a member of the National Infrastructure Commission and was President of the Econometric Society in 2018. He has published widely on a wide variety of topics, mainly with a policy focus. Amartya Sen is Thomas W Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics and an LSE Honorary Fellow. Minouche Shafik is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to this she was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. STICERD (@STICERD_LSE) brings together world-class academics to put economics and related disciplines at the forefront of research and policy. Founded in 1978 by the renowned Japanese economist Michio Morishima, with donations from Suntory and Toyota, we are a thriving research community within the LSE. The International Inequalities Institute (@LSEInequalities) brings together experts from many LSE departments and centres to provide co-ordination and strategic leadership for critical and cutting edge research and inter-disciplinary analysis of inequalities.