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Mission Economy by Mariana Mazzucato review – the return of the state

The pandemic has shown the limits of the market ... a book that takes its cue from the Apollo 11 mission is full of vital ideas for progressives who want to change capitalism

T he charge sheet against 40 years of British capitalism is as damning as it is familiar. Most people have experienced stagnant wages and seen no improvement in living standards; a wealthy elite has accumulated more and more while helping to destroy the planet. Business is bedevilled by low investment, short-term management and corporate greed. These failures were enabled by the retreat of the state from guiding and directing the economy from the Thatcher era to today.

The bungled response of the government to the pandemic – from the failure to enforce lockdown early enough to the test and trace debacle – has exposed the depth of the rot. It has also demonstrated the power and importance of the state in a crisis. But therein lies what might seem to be a paradox: just as we have needed a strong, capable government, those in power have been exposed as clueless and incompetent. Free marketers argue that these problems are inherent to the state. But contrasting international experiences reveal otherwise: the correct response to the pandemic is to demand better government, not less.

Mission Economy offers a path to rejuvenate the state and thereby mend capitalism, rather than end it. The case for a new approach is overwhelming and Mariana Mazzucato’s project is ambitious. By focusing on the immense power of governments to shape markets, she argues that capitalism itself can be remade. Mazzucato aims to infuse capitalism with public interest rather than private gain.

In her landmark 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State she invited us to rethink the role that the state could have in the creation of wealth. This was followed by The Value of Everything in 2018 , which demolished the widely held belief that a narrow economic elite was the wealth creator. The traditional framework confuses prices with value, meaning social goods are only examined for their costs rather than their social benefits.

Mission Economy takes the argument forward. It is styled as a “how to” guide for policymakers who want to unleash the full potential of the state to solve some of the great challenges of the 21st century. Mazzucato invites us to imagine government that “bears the greatest level of uncertainty and reforms … itself to take risks”. From confronting the climate crisis to improving health and wellbeing, Mission Economy offers a method to tackle the great challenges facing societies globally.

The title is inspired by President John F Kennedy’s mission to send a man to the moon and back: Mission Economy tells the story of Nasa’s Apollo programme and the lessons it teaches us. “To carry out the Apollo mission,” Mazzucato explains, “hundreds of complex problems had to be solved. Some solutions worked, many failed. All came out of a close partnership between government and business: a partnership with a purpose.” The book provides a fascinating account of Nasa in the 1960s that is rich with insight. (The British government’s own “Operation Moonshot”, on the other hand, currently provides a cautionary tale of the importance of defining a mission, and the collaborative leadership required to achieve it: both have been sorely absent.)

But this is not a nostalgic account of a better yesterday. Mazzucato systematically dismantles the arguments used to defend the broken status quo and then offers the pillars of a new approach. It is governments rather than businesses that take the big risks in the development of new technologies. Markets aren’t some kind of celestial creation but a set of rules that can be rewritten. Conceptualising government as a business is destructive rather than useful – and outsourcing often destroys value while corroding the crucial capabilities of the state. Government’s role should be to “tilt the playing field” in a direction that is good for society as a whole.

Mazzucato’s prescription is for governments, in dialogue with citizens, to define the grand challenges of our times and to set missions to solve them in partnership with business. These missions should be bold and inspirational – from solving the climate crisis to curing cancer to eliminating the digital divide. By focusing on the ends rather than the means, policymakers should create the space for creativity, experimentation and collaboration across sectors. All the most interesting and important problems today are collective action problems.

It requires civil servants to act boldly, with confidence in their capacity to create value. It requires more dynamic institutions and the same “whatever it takes” approach to budgeting as found in wartime to solve social problems. A strict focus on the economic benefits is counterproductive. As the Apollo example showed, spillover benefits will come by concentrating on what matters, not some narrow demand for short-term commercialisation.

Mazzucato makes a persuasive case. But can the missions she describes really solve systemic problems such as social care or the climate crisis, where success is less clear-cut than landing a man on the moon? Can missions really work when both the outcomes and the means are politically contested? Mission Economy attempts to take these counterarguments head-on but is not wholly convincing. The correlation between technological challenges – “big science meets big problems” – and systemic ones is imperfect. The importance of political stability in democratic politics is underplayed: JFK was succeeded by his vice-president Lyndon Johnson who was in office until just six months before the successful moon landing.

There are times when Mazzucato sounds rather too like the management consultants she derides as she co-opts their language proposing “mission maps”, “building in-house capabilities” and “indicators and monitoring frameworks”. Mission Economy is at its most compelling when it encourages the reader to look up to the stars not at a PowerPoint presentation.

But there is no perfect form to policymaking, and to focus on the limitations is to miss the broader point. Mission Economy injects the kind of vision, ambition and imagination so desperately missing from government today. It is a shot in the arm for policymakers who have grown weary after a decade of “can’t do” austerity. It is an invitation to think big.

For nearly half a century, progressives around the world have been locked in a miserable cycle of defending the gains of the postwar era while lacking a positive agenda for the 21st century. Meanwhile, it is conservatives who have become the revolutionaries: from tax cuts for the already extremely wealthy, the mass sell-off of public assets, to the unchecked rise of finance, to Britain’s exit from the EU, they have not shied away from their exploitative dreams. In Mission Economy , Mazzucato offers a call to bold, collective action. All those in favour of a better future – of prosperity that is broadly shared, first class public services to be enjoyed by all, and a solution to the climate crisis – should read this book.

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08 March 2021

Mission economy, a moonshot guide to changing capitalism.

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IB 3 years ago ↑ 0

Thanks for this useful review, Bridget.

FWIW, John Kay's review of the book ( https://www.johnkay.com/2021/01/15/mission-economy-by-mariana-mazzucato-could-moonshot-thinking-help-fix-the-planet/ ) also expresses reservations of its arguments.

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Article Contents

• The Problem with Innovation
• The state and the dispersion of knowledge
• Dreaming of Moonshots and the middle-income trap
• A Nordic guide to Moonshots: social policy and the politics of innovation
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On Mariana Mazzucato’s Mission Economy: a Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, London, Allen Lane, 2021

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Michael Storper, J Nicholas Ziegler, Antonio José Junqueira Botelho, Darius Ornston, On Mariana Mazzucato’s Mission Economy: a Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, London, Allen Lane, 2021, Socio-Economic Review , Volume 20, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 1501–1511, https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac042

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Mariana Mazzucato builds a credible case for an expanded role of government and regulation in the purposeful shaping of technological innovation and backs up her case with cogent examples. She joins this to an emerging awareness of the problems that were built into the major innovations of the third industrial revolution by the market. Those innovations, including the basic design of the Internet, we now know, have skill-biases, social biases and use and design biases. These biases were engineered into them not as optimal or efficient responses to social and market forces but as reflections of the cognitive biases of the inventor-engineer class and their financiers. This critique echoes that of even some insiders, such as Jaron Lanier (2011), who argues that the fundamental format of the computing-internet revolution is a ‘roads taken, and not taken’ story of the early days of this revolution. Subsequently, there were non-optimal forms of lock in and path dependency and sedimented power relations. The ideology of ‘disrupt it’ that comes from Silicon Valley has been shown to be a self-serving ideology that is a dangerous mix of libertarian hostility to government combined with a reverence for engineering over social compromise and for unlimited technological rents to the innovators.

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Mission Economy

A moonshot guide to changing capitalism.

“Mission Economy” has been published in 19 countries: Brazil (Companhia das Letras), Estonia (Varrak), Finland (Terra Cognita), France (Fayard), Germany (Campus), Greece (Epikentro), Israel (Poalim), Italy (Laterza), Japan (NewsPicks), Netherlands (Nieuw Amsterdam), Norway (Res Publica), Poland (Heterodox), Portugal (Temas e Debates), Serbia (Akadesmka knjiga), Slovenia (UMco), Spain (Taurus), Sweden (Verbal), the UK (Penguin Allen Lane), the USA (Harper Business) .

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Even before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, capitalism was stuck. It had no answers to a host of problems, including disease, inequality, the digital divide and, perhaps most blatantly, the environmental crisis.

Taking her inspiration from the ‘moonshot’ programmes which successfully coordinated public and private sectors on a massive scale, Mariana Mazzucato calls for the same level of boldness and experimentation to be applied to the biggest problems of our time.

Mission Economy looks at the grand challenges facing us in a radically new way, arguing that we must rethink the capacities and role of government within the economy and society, and above all recover a sense of public purpose.

To solve the massive crises facing us, we must be innovative — we must use collaborative, mission-oriented thinking while also bringing a stakeholder view of public private partnerships which means not only taking risks together but also sharing the rewards. We need to think bigger and mobilize our resources in a way that is as bold as inspirational as the moon landing—this time to the most ‘wicked’ social problems of our time.

We can only begin to find answers if we fundamentally restructure capitalism to make it inclusive, sustainable, and driven by innovation that tackles concrete problems. That means changing government tools and culture, creating new markers of corporate governance, and ensuring that corporations, society, and the government coalesce to share a common goal.

We did it to go to the moon. We can do it again to fix our problems and improve the lives of every one of us. We simply can no longer afford not to.

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Mariana Mazzucato: Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism

Allen Lane/Penguin, 2021, xxiv + 245 pp., ISBN: 978-0241419731

• BOOK REVIEW
• Published: 06 August 2021
• Volume 58 , pages 324–327, ( 2021 )

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Hudson, P. Mariana Mazzucato: Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism . Soc 58 , 324–327 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-021-00619-2

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April 4th, 2021

Book review: mission economy: a moonshot guide to changing capitalism by mariana mazzucato.

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

LSE MSc Environmental Policy and Regulation candidate, Flora Parki n , reviews  Mariana Mazzucato ’s new book,  Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism , and questions whether it goes far enough to tackle the worsening global climate crisis. 

This review was originally posted on the LSE International Development blog. If you are interested in this book, you can also watch a video of Mariana Mazzucato’s guest LSE lecture, recorded on 5 March 2021. 

Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism . Mariana Mazzucato. Allen Lane. 2021. 

Enter Mariana Mazzucato, and her timely new book  Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism . Part policy critique, part manifesto,  Mission Economy  reinvigorates the role of the state for tackling today’s complex problems, demanding vision, ambition and public purpose in economic strategy. The book is short, accessible and written with an urgency befitting this time of crises. But as persistent constraints continue to limit green policy at national and international levels, can Mazzucato’s approach unlock much needed systemic transitions, and work at the global scale?

Mazzucato starts by diagnosing our dysfunctional form of contemporary capitalism, fuelled by and fuelling climate crisis. She identifies four drivers of this dysfunction: 1) finance sector short-termism; 2) the financialisation of business and value; 3) fossil fuel dependency; and 4) slow or absent governments. Lamenting the UK’s ‘infantilised’ civil service and the depletion of Western governments through dereglation and outsourcing, Mazzucato highlights a toxic, self-fulfilling prophecy at play: ‘the less government does, the less it takes risks and manages, the less capacity it develops, and the more boring it is to work for’ (49). The resulting drain limits public sector leadership, and possibilities for green strategy.

Mazzucato is on home turf in tying these present-day deficiencies to corrosive myths contrasting ‘public vs. private’, characterising government as incompetent.  Mission Economy  offers free-flowing empirical examples of how these myths serve to undermine the green transition. Through examples in the UK alone – such as the undervaluation of off-shore wind farms due to cost miscalculation, to the UK’s failed COVID-19 track-and-trace system – she demonstrates the limits of outsourcing and privatisation, arguing instead for bold public investment at the high-risk, uncertain, experimental phases of innovation. When made strategically in line with a vision, such investments can catalyse ‘spillovers’ and learning benefits across the economy, analogous to visions for a Green New Deal (something she discusses extensively in the book).

The cornerstone of her argument is the case study from which the book takes its name: the Apollo mission to put a man on the moon. From its start in 1962, President John F. Kennedy was explicit that this mission would be hard, cost a lot of money, that things would go wrong, but that its beneficial spillovers for society would be worth it. The mission had purpose, and inspired a generation. Innovation occurred across computing, communications and electronics, bringing about the IT revolution, while innovations in textiles and nutrition are still with us today. Mazzucato identifies six key lessons for tackling complex problems from Apollo, developing them into principles for a new political economy: 1) vision and a strong sense of purpose; 2) risk taking and innovation; 3) organisational dynamism; 4) cross-sectoral collaboration; 5) outcomes-based budgets and long-term horizons; and 6) dynamic public-private partnerships. Mazzucato goes on to explore the ways these can apply to present day net-zero strategies, green city programmes and missions to achieve the sustainable development goals.

In media interviews around the book launch, Mazzucato found herself regularly correcting interviewers about the reason for focusing on Apollo: it demonstrates a dynamic, visionary, innovative role for the public sector, in contrast to common perceptions of incompetence and weakness. However Mazzucato stresses that today’s challenges are more holistic than Apollo, and ‘require more citizen engagement in the vision of the mission itself’ (199). Citizen engagement is placed at the heart of Mazzucato’s mission-setting process. Designing more democracy into institutional processes enables Mazzucato to avoid a preoccupation with technocratic institutional reform, with the implication being that democracy enables just outcomes, and a progressive political economy.

But is this enough? Like her contemporary  Kate Raworth ’s  Doughnut Economics , this mission-oriented approach eschews old political ideologies, focusing on public participation as a means to deliver a more just capitalism. What gets left out, however, is an account of power, and how power shapes the policy process – including at the level of public participation. A dysfunctional capitalist system is not simply down to insufficient policy ideas and low public sector self-confidence. The role of corporate and institutional power in preventing proposals akin to those Mazzucato advocates here (patient long-term financing, high-risk public equity stakes in start-ups, ‘insourcing’ public service provision) goes unexamined, in favour of working solely with the willing. This begs the question: what is the strategy for states to reclaim power ceded to global financial markets, lobbying networks and corporate elites, to pursue systems change?

Mission-oriented approaches may also be less viable in developing country contexts. Mazzucato’s main reference points are the UK, the EU and the US, yet in the context of international climate mitigation, decarbonisation also depends on fostering low-carbon pathways for developing countries. Here, her advocacy of  Modern Monetary Theory  (MMT) to expand opportunities for public investment seems narrowly applicable. MMT is a theory designed for countries in sovereign control of their currencies, rendering its implications inaccessible for economies pegged to external currencies, or where spending is constrained by debt obligations and donor funding conditionalities. Beyond MMT, assertive industrial strategy may also be complicated for countries with less established institutions, while this lack of institutional capacity could also make participatory policy design harder to achieve.

In the UK context at least, a mission-oriented approach could catalyse visionary, green industrial strategy. Such an approach must be accompanied by an account of power, and in the context of international climate efforts, Mazzucato’s recommendations might not be widely accessible.  Mission Economy  is undoubtedly successful, however, in articulating a practical framework for ambitious, state-led climate strategy, and in Mazzucato’s infectious enthusiasm to do things differently.

• This article originally appeared at the  LSE Review of Books .
• Image Credit: Image credit:  IIPP (CC BY NC 2.0) . Mariana Mazzucato, Professor of Economics of Innovation and Public Value; Founder and Director, Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London (UCL) speaking in the How to Measure a New Economy session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 23 January.

Please read our comments policy before commenting .  

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of USAPP– American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.  

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About the reviewer

Flora Parkin – LSE Flora Parkin (@FloraParkin) is an MSc candidate in Environmental Policy and Regulation at the LSE. She researches the role of natural capital in UK decarbonisation policy, and has written on queer natures and the Anthropocene. You can connect with Flora on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flora-parkin-284a7b54/.

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Independent review panel releases final report on UNRWA

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An independent panel released its much-awaited report on Monday about the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), providing 50 recommendations and noting that Israeli authorities have yet to provide proof of their claims that UN staff are involved with terrorist organisations.

“Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organisations. However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this,” according to the 54-page  final report , Independent review of mechanisms and procedures to ensure adherence by UNRWA to the humanitarian principle of neutrality .

The UN Secretary-General, who received the final report at the weekend, had appointed the independent review group days after Israel announced the allegations against UNRWA, which employees 30,000 people and serves 5.9 million Palestine refugees in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and war-torn Gaza.

The much-awaited final report found that UNRWA, established by the General Assembly in 1949, has extensive tools in place to ensure it remains unbiased in its work and routinely provides Israel with employee lists and “ the Israeli Government has not informed UNRWA of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on these staff lists since 2011.”

UNRWA has ‘most elaborate’ rules within UN system

“The set of rules and the mechanisms and procedures in place [at UNRWA] are the most elaborate within the UN system, precisely because it is such a difficult issue to work in such a complex and sensitive environment,” Catherine Colonna, former French foreign minister and head of the review group, told journalists at UN Headquarters following the report’s launch. “What needs to be improved will be improved. I’m confident that implementing these measures will help UNRWA deliver on its mandate .”

Strongly encouraging "the international community to work side by side with the agency so it can perform its mission and overcome the challenges when they are there", she said “this is the purpose of the review.”

In its nine-week-long review of existing mechanisms, the group conducted more than 200 interviews, met with Israeli and Palestinian authorities and directly contacted 47 countries and organisations, presenting a set of 50 recommendations on issues ranging from education to fresh vetting processes for recruiting staff.

Report steers new UN action plan

The report’s recommendations include creating a centralised “neutrality investigations unit”, rolling out an updated Code of Ethics and associated training to all staff, and identifying and implementing additional ways to screen UNRWA applicants at an early stage of the recruitment process.

The report also suggested exploring the possibility of third-party monitoring for sensitive projects and establishing a framework with interested donors to ensure transparency.

In a  statement on Monday, the UN Secretary-General’s Spokesperson said the UN chief accepts the recommendations contained in Ms. Colonna’s report. He has agreed with Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini that UNRWA, with the Secretary-General’s support, will establish an action plan to implement the recommendations contained in the final report.”

Claims financially hobbled UNRWA

According to the review group’s final report, Israel’s claims against UNRWA triggered the suspension of funding amounting to around $450 million.

The direct impact of Israel’s allegations swiftly hobbled UNRWA’s ability to continue its work. Operating solely on voluntary donations, UNRWA saw major donors, including the United States, cancelling or suspending funds for the agency.

In April, Washington banned funding for UNRWA until at least 2025, but other donors have pledged additional funding or restored their donations.

The new report recommended increasing the frequency and strengthening the transparency of UNRWA’s communication with donors on its financial situation and on neutrality allegations and breaches. The review group suggested regular updates and “integrity briefings” for donors interested in supporting UNRWA on integrity and related issues.

Findings on UNRWA schools

The UN agency delivers on its obligation to ensure neutrality of its 1,000 installations, including schools, healthcare centres and warehouses, according to the report, which also stated that “security and capacity challenges may hamper” existing due diligence mechanisms.

The review group said UNRWA “has consistently worked on ensuring neutrality in education” as it provides elementary and preparatory education for 500,000 pupils in 706 schools with 20,000 educational staff, including in Gaza, where right now all children are out of school following attacks  destroying the enclave’s education system amid the ongoing conflict.

Claims of anti-Semitic textbooks

Investigating “sustained criticism, mainly from Israel”, about the alleged presence of hate speech, incitement to violence and anti-Semitism in Palestinian Authority educational material, the review group examined three major international assessments and studies.

The new report showed that two identified bias and non-compliant content, but did not provide evidence of anti-Semitic reference . A third, the Eckert report, identified two examples that displayed anti-Semitic content, but noted that one had already been removed and the other significantly altered.

As such, the report recommended several actions, including the review of the content of all textbooks with host countries, Israel and the Palestinian Authority .

UNRWA remains a pivotal ‘lifeline’ for Palestine

The report stated that “in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing lifesaving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank” and is “irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development”.

“In addition, many view UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline ,” according to the report.

The UN chief on Monday said he counted on the cooperation of the donor community, the host countries and the staff to fully cooperate in the implementation of the new report’s final recommendations, the UN Spokesperson said.

“Moving forward, the Secretary-General appeals to all stakeholders to actively support UNRWA, as it is a lifeline for Palestine refugees in the region,” he said.

Other top UN officials have voiced strong support for the agency, calling on donors to reverse funding cuts and allow UNRWA to perform its work, especially in Gaza.

In late March, Israel announced it would  reject UNRWA’s requests to deliver aid into northern Gaza, where a  famine is unfolding as Israeli authorities  continue to block or severely delay lifesaving aid shipments , according to UN officials, who  launched an appeal last week for emergency funding.

Lazzarini: Report will further strengthen UNRWA

UNRWA chief Lazzarini welcomed the report’s findings and recommendations.

“ UNRWA is developing an action plan , with a timeline and budget to take forward the report’s recommendations,” he said in a statement on Monday. 

He said implementing some of the recommendations will require extensive engagement with staff and partners, including Member States, host nations and donor countries, adding that the UN agency looks forward to cooperating with all concerned stakeholders to implement the recommendations.

“UNRWA is firmly dedicated to applying UN values and humanitarian principles,” he said. “The recommendations in this report will further strengthen our efforts and response during one of the most difficult moments in the history of the Palestinian people.”

First of two investigations

Following Israel’s allegations against UNRWA in late January, the UN agency immediately fired the staff members in question and requested a swift, impartial investigation. The UN chief ordered two.

Days later, the Secretary-General  appointed an independent review team , led by Ms. Colonna and researched by Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Michelsen Institute in Norway and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, to investigate the UNRWA’s process of ensuring neutrality in its work.

At the same time, the UN chief ordered the UN’s top watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight (OIOS), to investigate the veracity of Israel’s claims against the 12 UNRWA staff members.

At  the outset , OIOS investigators reached out to Member States concerned, visited UNRWA headquarters in Jordan and reviewed initial information received by the agency from Israeli authorities and from a variety of sources, including that released through the media and other public outlets.

That investigation is ongoing.

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Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism Kindle Edition

'One of the most influential economists in the world' Wired Even before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, capitalism was stuck. It had no answers to a host of problems, including disease, inequality, the digital divide and, perhaps most blatantly, the environmental crisis. Taking her inspiration from the 'moonshot' programmes which successfully co-ordinated public and private sectors on a massive scale, Mariana Mazzucato calls for the same level of boldness and experimentation to be applied to the biggest problems of our time. We must, she argues, rethink the capacities and role of government within the economy and society, and above all recover a sense of public purpose. Mission Economy , whose ideas are already being adopted around the world, offers a way out of our impasse to a more optimistic future.

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About the Author

Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL) where she is also Founder and Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She is author of the highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, and winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy, the 2015 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She advises policymakers around the world on how to deliver smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. She was named as one of the 3 most important thinkers about innovation in the New Republic.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07YFBDHVY
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin (January 28, 2021)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 28, 2021
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 11586 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 253 pages
• #539 in Economic Theory (Kindle Store)
• #728 in Free Enterprise & Capitalism
• #834 in Economic Conditions (Kindle Store)

About the author

Mariana mazzucato.

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP).

She received her BA from Tufts University and her MA and PhD from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at Sussex University. She is a selected fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and of the Italian National Science Academy (Lincei).

She is winner of international prizes including the 2020 John Von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation' by the New Republic, one of the 50 most creative people in business in 2020 by Fast Company, and one of the 25 leaders shaping the future of capitalism by Wired.

Her highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013) investigates the critical role the state plays in driving growth—and her book The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018) looks at how value creation needs to be rewarded over value extraction.

She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her current roles include being a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council; the OECD Secretary General’s Advisory Group on a New Growth Narrative; the UN’s Committee for Development Policy (CDP), Vinnova’s Advisory Panel in Sweden, and Norway’s Research Council.

She is a Special Economic Advisor for the Italian Prime Minister (2020), and through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019), she authored the high impact report on Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union, turning “missions” into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission’s Horizon innovation programme.

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