42
FORTUNE.COM // JANUARY 2020
W
ARNING SIGNS that
the capital markets
aren’t functioning
properly are everywhere.
Take corporate profits.
Long term, they’re up. But
investment is down. Now
look at the levels of income
inequality and youth
unemployment: Young,
able-bodied people lack the
skills to compete in the job
market, while companies
are desperate to find skilled
workers.
According to Mariana
Mazzucato, an economist
and founding director of
the UCL Institute for Inno-
vation and Public Purpose
in London, paradoxes like
these point to the fact that
the public and private
sectors have lost their way.
There was once a fairly
smooth running partner-
ship between the two in
which publicly funded R&D
helped propel us into the
space race, and, later, the
computer and Internet ages.
Unless we rebuild those
bonds, Mazzucato warns,
innovation will dry up,
growth and profits will
suffer, and inequality
will worsen.
How should government and
business be working together?
The public sector isn’t just
there to fix the market fail-
ures. It’s also an investor
of first resort, to invest in
some of the most uncertain
highly capital-intensive
areas before businesses
are willing to ... The big
point is that we need to
focus on a more purposeful
system that goes beyond
shareholder value. And
that requires a redesign of
20 IDEAS THAT WILL SHAPE THE 2020s
ECONOMY & MARKETS
MARIANA
MA Z ZUCATO
BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
WILL—GASP!—WORK
TOGETHER AGAIN
Corporate and
government
teams collabo-
rated to put a man
on the moon.
The moon landing
could not have
happened without
government
partnering with
major corporations.
Mazzucato has
struck a bipartisan
nerve with her calls
for business and
government to
tackle ambitious
projects—together.
INTERVIEW BY BERNHARD WARNER
SPACE FRONTIERS/GETTY IM
AGES
