Interrogating the entrepreneurial state

This week, Mariana Mazzucato will give the inaugural New Statesman/SPERI prize lecture for political economy. Her 2013 book, The Entrepreneurial State, has provoked widespread debate about the role of government in innovation. But do her arguments stack up as a guide to policy? Nestas Stian Westlake has some doubts.

Its rare for a book about innovation policy to break out of the technocratic ghetto and make it into the political mainstream. It happens perhaps once every decade.

Michael PortersCompetitive Advantage of Nations (1990) sold the world on clusters. Richard FloridasRise of the Creative Class (2002) launched a thousand arts-based regeneration schemes. The Entrepreneurial State(2013), by University of Sussex economist Mariana Mazzucato, is on the way to being the next breakthrough success.