The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths

Description

From one of the world's leading economists, a bestselling expose of the state's crucial role in sparking innovation and growth - and the dangers of ignoring this truth Conventional wisdom holds that innovation is the preserve of the private sector, best left in the hands of that modern day folk hero - the lone entrepreneur. In this popular tale, the role of the public sector is simply to get out of the way, at best fixing market failures, in order to facilitate our daring hero's bold, risk-taking endeavours. But what if this powerful, contemporary myth is wrong? In this sharp and controversial expose, Mariana Mazzucato comprehensively debunks the myth of a lumbering, bureaucratic state weighing down a dynamic private sector, to reveal how public investments have been behind many of the greatest innovations of our time. From the technologies that make the iPhone 'smart', to biotech, pharmaceuticals and today's emerging green technologies, it is the state that has been the investor of first resort, our boldest and most valuable innovator. Meanwhile, the private sector only finds the courage to invest after the State has made the truly pioneering, high-risk investments.

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. Her widely published research focuses on the relationship between public policy, innovation, and economic growth and she advises policymakers around the world on how to steer innovation so that it produces growth that is more inclusive and sustainable. She is co-editor of Rethinking Capitalism- Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth and her new book The Value of Everything- making and taking in the global economy will be published by Penguin (Allen Lane) in April 2018. She is winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy, the 2015 Hans-Matth fer-Preis and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the 'three most important thinkers about innovation' in New Republic.

Read her book. It will challenge your thinking * Forbes * One of the most incisive economics books in years * New York Review of Books * This book has a controversial thesis. But it is basically right * Financial Times *