Economic Policy: From Market Fixing to Market Making and Creating, SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2016-01-27

https://www.soas.ac.uk/development/
This event titled "Economic Policy: From Market Fixing to Market Making and Creating" was given by Professor Mariana Mazzucato (Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK) as part of the Development Studies Seminar Series at SOAS University of London on 19 January 2016.

Professor Mazzucato's talk will look at the limits of market failure theory for addressing the role of policy in creating growth that is more ’smart’ (innovation-led), sustainable (more green) and inclusive (less inequality). It will focus on the lessons from the work of Karl Polanyi, evolutionary economics, and the innovation literature on ‘mission-oriented’ policy. Rather than seeing the role of policy as fixing different types of market failures (problems related to ‘public goods’, and positive and negative externalities), the role of policy will be posited in terms of the active shaping and creating of markets. Markets will be discussed in terms of ‘outcomes’ of interactions between heterogeneous agents (including different types of public and private organisations). After a theoretical discussion, the talk will focus on the implications of this approach for addressing key challenges around energy innovation, financial market reform, and inequality.

This seminar is co-hosted with the Industrial Development and Policy Research Cluster - SOAS IDP, Department of Economics.

Find out more about this event at https://www.soas.ac.uk/development/events/devstudseminars/19jan2016-economic-policy-from-market-fixing-to-market-making-and-creating.html

Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) in the University of Sussex. Her recent book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem, 2013) was on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times. It focuses on the need to develop new frameworks to understand the role of the state in economic growth—and how to enable rewards from innovation to be just as ‘social’ as the risks taken. She is winner of the New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy and in 2013 the New Republic called her one of the 'three most important thinkers about innovation'. She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led growth and is a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Economics of Innovation; and a permanent member of the European Commission’s expert group on Innovation for Growth (RISE).