Mariana Mazzucato(1968 — ?)
Mariana Mazzucato
États-Unis, Italie, Royaume-Uni
6 min read
Mariana Mazzucato is an Italian-American economist born in 1968, a professor at University College London. She is known for her work on the driving role of the state in innovation and on value creation in the economy.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born on June 16, 1968, in Rome (Italy), she grew up in the United States.
- Published “The Entrepreneurial State” in 2013, which argues that the state is a major driver of innovation.
- Published “The Value of Everything” in 2018, on the distinction between value creation and value extraction.
- Founded the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at University College London in 2017.
- Published “Mission Economy” in 2021, a plea for public policies guided by grand missions.
Works & Achievements
A major book that demonstrates the decisive role of the state in great technological innovations. It reshaped the global debate on public investment.
An essay that examines the difference between creating value and capturing it in the modern economy. It criticizes finance and certain forms of rent-seeking.
A book that proposes steering the economy through grand “missions,” modeled on the Apollo program. It has inspired public policy across Europe.
A research center created at UCL to rethink the role of the state and public value. It trains a new generation of economists.
Work and a report on the economics of health and the common good. They apply her ideas to global health in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Intellectual input into the European Union's mission-based climate strategy. This illustrates the concrete influence of her theories.
Anecdotes
When Mariana Mazzucato takes apart the iPhone, she loves to show that nearly all of its cutting-edge technologies — the touchscreen, GPS, the Internet, the Siri voice assistant — were born from research funded by the American government. Her conclusion always sparks debate: without public investment, no smartphone.
Born in Rome in 1968, Mariana Mazzucato moved to the United States at the age of five when her father, a nuclear physicist, was offered a position there. Growing up between Italy and America gave her an early taste for comparing how different countries organize their economies.
Her book *The Entrepreneurial State* made such an impression that governments around the world invited her as an adviser. The World Health Organization, the European Commission, and several countries asked her to rethink their innovation policies around major “missions.”
Mazzucato often compares public policy to the Apollo program that put a man on the Moon in 1969. In her view, fighting climate change or cancer demands the same collective ambition: setting a clear goal and rallying businesses and researchers around a common mission.
She loves to overturn a common assumption: the State is often portrayed as cumbersome and private enterprise as the only bold player. Mazzucato counters that it is often the State that takes the wildest risks, funding research that no one else would dare to pay for.
Primary Sources
Far from being a brake on progress, the state has often been the boldest and most entrepreneurial force in the economy, taking risks that the private sector refused to shoulder.
If we can no longer tell those who truly create value apart from those who merely extract it, we risk rewarding predation rather than production.
If we could put a man on the Moon, why couldn't we solve the great problems of our time? Doing so requires an economy steered by missions.
Key Places
Birthplace of Mariana Mazzucato, where she was born in 1968 before her family emigrated.
The state where Mazzucato grew up after her family arrived in the United States in the 1970s.
American university where she pursued her early higher education before specializing in economics.
New York institution where Mazzucato earned her doctorate in economics, shaped by heterodox schools of thought.
University where she is a professor and where, in 2017, she founded the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.
