In acute emergency situations such as the corona pandemic or the current energy crisis, the focus of economic policy is on support and rescue. This is primarily the task of the central state. The Länder must support these measures and implement them locally. At the centre of a visionary, evidence-based economic policy of the Länder, however, must lie structural measures aimed at increased immigration, higher productivity and climate neutrality. In this context, as Michael Thöne writes in a statement for the North Rhine-Westphalian parliament, fiscal restrictions and the state's own shortage of skilled staff are forcing the states to also modernise ambitiously.