The problem is that the public sector has become downscaled and also not allowed actually to even have missions and to think big. And then this focus on the debt, it's striking. Italy has had a low deficit for years, lower than Germany's. But they stopped doing anything beyond just setting guarantees and subsidies. It wasn't really co-investing in thinking about the future of education and research and health, etc. They had really low productivity. So you do have a cross Europe, this crazy situation where you have low deficit, but high debt to GDP.
In this two-part episode recorded in 2018, economist and author Mariana Mazzucato discusses her book, The Value of Everything, with UK Labour MP Stella Creasy. It's a wide-ranging discussion looking at how real wealth is created in our economy and how we can measure the true worth of both infrastructure and services. Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London.
We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.
Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.
And if you’d like to get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency .
Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices