TED talks: government: investor, risk-taker, innovator – Mariana Mazzucato

Governments are innovative and take risks: a sentence not heard all too often. But in this week’s featured TED talk, Mariana Mazzucato, professor of economics at the University of Sussex, gives a compelling argument for why they do just that.

Building on the research in her latest book, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Private vs. Public Myths in Innovation, Mazzucato seeks to dispel what in her opinion are myths; that governments are slow, bureaucratic and risk-averse.

Instead, they are one of our most exciting risk-takers and market-shapers, she says, helping fund the technology behind the iPhone and Google, and leading the way in the green revolution.

And it is that role that Mazzucato argues Europe and the rest of the world need to rediscover.

To watch this video on the TED website, click here.