Mariana Mazzucato

Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value

Director, The Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

University College London

www.marianamazzucato.com  |  @MazzucatoM

Keynote: Mission Oriented Innovation: Rethinking the DIRECTION of Economic Growth

Bio

Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the Chair in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value and is Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London (UCL). She previously held the RM Phillips Chair at SPRU, University of Sussex and has held academic positions at the University of Denver, the London Business School, Bocconi University and the Open University.

Her highly acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem, 2013; updated US edition, Public Affairs, 2015) 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. Professor Mazzucato is winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy, the 2015 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis and in 2013 she was named as one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation' in the New Republic.

She has advised policy makers around the world on innovation-led growth and is currently a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; a member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network Leadership Council, and SITRA’s (the Finnish Innovation Fund) Advisory Panel

Her research focuses on the relationship between financial markets, innovation, and economic growth—and how to ensure smart, innovation-led growth is also more inclusive and sustainable.  Her current research projects include two funded by the EC Horizon programme:  Innovation-fuelled, Sustainable, Inclusive Growth (ISIGrowth) and Distributed Global Financial Systems for Society (DOLFINS), and new projects on Rethinking Medical Innovation, funded by the Open Society Foundations and on mission-oriented innovation policies in Latin America with the Inter-American Development Bank. Her recent research includes projects funded by the Ford Foundation and the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and work commissioned by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Brazilian Ministry for Science and Technology. Between 2009-2012 she directed a large 3-year European Commission FP7 funded project on Finance, Innovation and Growth (FINNOV).

She is co-editor of a new book, Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth (Wiley Blackwell, July 2016). Her new book The Value of Everything, will be published by Penguin (Allen Lane) in 2018.

Her research outputs, media engagement (including articles in the FT, Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Guardian and Foreign Affairs), and talks (including her TED Global talk), can be found on her website.

Thomas Palley

Senior Economic Policy Adviser to the AFL-CIO

http://www.thomaspalley.com 

Keynote:The Political Economy of the Neoliberal War on the Welfare State

Bio

Thomas Palley is Senior Economic Policy Adviser to the AFL-CIO. He was formerly Chief Economist with the US – China Economic and Security Review Commission. Prior to joining the Commission he was Director of the Open Society Institute’s Globalization Reform Project.

He holds a B.A. degree from Oxford University and a M.A. degree in International Relations and Ph.D. in Economics, both from Yale University.

Dr. Palley’s recent books are From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: The Destruction of Shared Prosperity and the Role of Economics (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Financialization: The Economics of Finance Capital Domination (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); and The Economic Crisis: Notes from the Underground (CreateSpace, 2012).

He is also the author of Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism (Princeton University Press, 1998) and Post Keynesian Economics (Macmillan Press, 1996). He also co-edited with Gustav Horn Restoring Shared Prosperity: A Policy Agenda from Leading Keynesian Economists (CreateSpace, 2013).

He has published over 150 articles in a wide range of academic journals, as well as publishing numerous book chapters, newspaper op-eds, and articles in popular magazines. His op-eds and recent articles are available at www.thomaspalley.com