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A work of tremendous ambition, academic rigor, and originality, The Value of Everything argues that American companies have for too long been valued according to the amount of wealth they capture for themselves rather than for the value they create for the economy. In fact, Pfizer, Amazon, and countless other companies that claim to drive innovation are actually hopelessly dependent on public money, spend their resources on boosting share prices and executive pay, and reap ever-expanding rewards without offering the market real value. Such parasitic behavior is only getting worse: leading American companies are profiting from the redistribution of wealth and knowledge without giving anything back to the communities that have made them so profitable.In her previous groundbreaking and controversial work, The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato argued that public investment has been the most significant driver of innovation and product development. The iPhone as it exists would not have been possible without government-sponsored technology like Siri, GPS, the Internet, and Touch ID. Yet Apple today, like numerous other technology and biotech companies, is engaging in a massive repurchase scheme, and for the first time has prioritized value-extraction practices such as spending to boost shareholder profit and lobbying to diminish the state and its tax policies-the very initiatives that funded their software. If private companies continue down this path, they will succeed in diminishing the size of their largest and most successful investor-the state-and will destroy powerful opportunities, shrivel markets, and depress wealth. The lesson here is urgent and sobering: to rescue our economy from the next, inevitable crisis and foster long-term economic growth, we will need to rethink capitalism, rethink the state rather than downsize it, and redefine how we measure value in our society.



About the Author

Mariana Mazzucato

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL) , where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP) . She received her BA from Tufts University and her MA and PhD from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at Sussex University. She is a selected fellow of the UK's Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and of the Italian National Science Academy (Lincei) . She is winner of international prizes including the 2020 John Von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Stael Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation' by the New Republic, one of the 50 most creative people in business in 2020 by Fast Company, and one of the 25 leaders shaping the future of capitalism by Wired.Her highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013) investigates the critical role the state plays in driving growth - and her book The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018) looks at how value creation needs to be rewarded over value extraction. She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her current roles include being a member of the Scottish Government's Council of Economic Advisors; the South African President's Economic Advisory Council; the OECD Secretary General's Advisory Group on a New Growth Narrative; the UN's Committee for Development Policy (CDP) , Vinnova's Advisory Panel in Sweden, and Norway's Research Council. She is a Special Economic Advisor for the Italian Prime Minister (2020) , and through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019) , she authored the high impact report on Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union, turning "missions" into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission's Horizon innovation programme.



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