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Filmed on Monday June 24, 02019

Mariana Mazzucato

Rethinking Value

Mariana Mazzucato is a Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, and is Founder and Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose.

Mazzucato's work is focused on the economics of innovation; the role of the State in modern capitalism; finance and economic growth; and how to steer innovation in ‘mission oriented’ ways directed at the sustainable development goals.

What happens when we confuse price with value? We end up undervaluing care. We pollute more. And the financial sector is allowed to brag about how productive it is—while often just moving around existing value, created by others. Most importantly we end up with a form of capitalism that rewards value extraction activities over value creation, increasing inequality in the process.

Economist Mariana Mazzucato: “I will argue that the way the word ‘value’ is used in modern economics has made it easier for value-extracting activities to masquerade as value-creating activities. And in the process rents (unearned income) gets confused with profits (earned income); inequality rises, and investment in the real economy falls.” Markets have always been shaped, Mazzucato notes. They can be reshaped now to better reflect and foster real value—creating a more sustainable and inclusive economy.

A professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she founded and directs the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Mariana Mazzucato is the author of The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018) and of The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (2013).

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