Welcome, I’m an economist with an interest in the relationship between innovation and growth, and economic policies that can ensure that economic growth is not only 'smart' but also inclusive and sustainable.
I am currently R.M. Phillips Professor in Science and Technology Policy (SPRU department) at the University of Sussex (UK) and Visiting Professor in the Economics of Innovation at the Open University (UK). I am also Economics Director of the ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research of Innovation in Genomics (INNOGEN); and Scientific Coordinator of a 3 year European Commission funded FP7 project on Finance, Innovation and Growth (FINNOV, 2009-2012).
The purpose of this website is to inform academics, policy makers, the media and the general public of latest developments in these and other research projects, how they affect our understanding of the current economic crisis and the new ideas emerging on how to drive innovation and create sustainable economic growth.
Recent Blogs
How Osborne's Budget can increase confidence - The state must have more faith in its own powers
This week's Budget will reflect whether George Osborne's team has learned some economics over the last few months. If not, here is a last minute crash course, focusing on the need to increase "confidence" (the government's buzz word). But whose confidence? Read More
Building the Entrepreneurial State
Industrial policy is back on the agenda, not least due to the leaked letter this week by Vince Cable to the Prime Minister asking for a growth policy with a more "compelling vision" of the future. This is good news so long as the discussion moves beyond the fear about "picking winners". There is no point in talking about innovation, if economic policies focused on austerity prevent key investments which can increase productivity and human capital. Read More
Austerity Plans Are Based on the Wrong Diagnosis of the Wrong Problem -- And May Plunge Europe into Depression
Even if European politicians ‘get their acts together,’ the eurozone crisis will not be solved by a new ‘Fiscal Compact’ obsessed with austerity, i.e. tight rules for all member states on their spending. The agreement, which is intended to save the single currency, is not a “fiscal” anything, since that word usually refers to government spending. Read more...
Wake up, George and smell the green tea
Today the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) is expected to downgrade the UK growth forecast to less than 1%. This is bad news because if the UK economy does not grow, the major cuts in spending will not achieve their goal of reducing the deficit, and hence have caused much suffering -especially for the weakest elements of society - for nothing. Read more...
Recent Media
- BBC News, 24 April 2012
- SKY News, 22 March 2012: "UK Budget 2012"
- Bloomberg TV, 2 March 2012
- BBC News, 12 February 2012
- BBC World News, 21 February 2012
- Bloomberg TV, 31 January 2012
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BBC Newsnight, 24 January 2012
Latest Tweets
follow me on
- im on bbc news channel at 315 on eurozone. how to get investment going in Greece and....the UK!
- RT @vanderbeeken: Nice innovation investment growth argument by Mariana Mazzucato @MazzucatoM in today's Guardian http://t.co/b5iBmBaP
- @ChiOnwurah thanks for RT but they have now corrected it and I'm back to being a woman: http://t.co/jehur51m
Recent Highlights
17 May 2012 - In an article written for The Guardian, Professor Mazzucato argues that the ECB needs to focus investment on rebalancing the economy.
15 May 2012 - Prof Mazzucato talks about the importance of a Plan B and how the public sector financial crisis of the Eurozone was caused by private debt.
23 Apr 2012 - In an article written for The Guardian, Professor Mazzucato argues that Entrepreneurs depend on public funds to make the early, risky investments.
Austerity is not the answer to Europe's economic woes
22 Mar 2012 - In an article written for Research Europe, Professor Mazzucato says that the only way to beat the Eurozone crisis is to invest in innovation.
European governments must do more to spend money
10 Mar 2012 - Journalist Caroline de Gruyter, Brussels correspondent for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, wrote: "More and more euro-countries have struggled with the strict fiscal rules they themselves have imposed late last year. They find the Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato on their side. 'With their austerity mania euro countries undermine their own recovery.'"
BBC Radio 4 interview
6 Mar 2012 - Prof Mazzucato explains to Today programme's Evan Davis that a coherent industry strategy, supporting innovation and productivity, has been "lacking in the UK" in the last 10 years.
25 Feb 2012 - Prof Mazzucato's research is highlighted in an article by Anthony Hilton on the lessons Europe can learn from active State intervention in the US. Silicon Valley.
Read the article in full
Science's own financial crisis
17 Feb 2012 - Clive Cookson from the Financial Times talks about how Prof Mariana Mazzucato and the research project FINNOV analysed the extent to which the financial system promotes or impedes growth in a range of high-tech and science-based sectors.
5 Feb 2012 - Professor Mazzucato and the FINNOV research results are mentioned in an article by Margareta Pagano in the Independent.
1 Feb 2012 - In her article "Explaining rising income inequality", published in The New Statesman, Professor Mazzucato discusses the inequality of income in the major Western capitalist economies.
UK Government Growth Strategy
Dec 2011 - Professor Mazzucato and FINNOV, the EC funded project she directs, have been cited by the Business, Innovation and Skills Department of UK Government as one of the most important research projects analysing financial-real connections and their impacts on innovation and growth.
Italy has invested in the 'wrong places'
14 Nov 2011 - Coverage
of Professor Mazzucato's interview on Bloomberg TV on The
Washington Post website. Read the Washington Post page
UK Economic Strategy isn't Working
11 Jul 2011 - In her article "The state doesn't need the private sector to be entrepreneurial" published in the New Statesman, Professor Mazzucato discusses how the UK state is crucial to creating the right conditions for innovation. Read the article in full.
Launch of The Entrepreneurial State
11 Jul 2011 - Demos hosted the launch of The Entrepreneurial State pamphlet, written by Professor Mazzucato, who makes the case for a reassessment of the role of government in UK growth policy. Read more...
Finance and Growth
FINNOV is a research project, directed by Professor Mazzucato and funded by the European Commission, looking at the impact of financial markets on a nation’s finances, innovation and growth. The findings will be used to inform financial and innovation policy at the national and transnational level.
Click here to read the FINNOV Policy Brief.
Click here to read the FINNOV Policy Brief.
Click here to view the FINNOV brochure.
Click here to view the page on the FINNOV final event held in the UK Parliament on February 2012