Rethinking Economic Power in the Digital Age
Fausto Gernone, Tommaso Valetti, Cecilia Rikap and Mariana Mazzucato explore how digital-age power comes from shaping connections, standards & chokepoints that determine who captures value.
Rethinking Economic Power in the Digital Age
04 Nov 2025, 17:30 – 19:00
This event is organised by the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (UCL IIPP). Explore more IIPP events here.
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About this talk:
Where does economic power live in the digital age? Fausto Gernone argues that power is not just about market share or size but about position: the ability to shape the web of relationships through which goods, services and data flow. By looking at production as a collective process where agents are tied by informational interdependence, the talk reframes the question of who wins and why. It shows that control over the architecture of cooperation – the interfaces, standards and rules that connect firms – can turn ordinary parts of the economy into strategic chokepoints that concentrate value.
Meet the panel:
- Opening remarks: Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value, University College London and Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
- Speaker: Fausto Gernone, PhD Candidate at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
- Chair: Dr Cecilia Rikap, Head of Research and Associate Professor in Economics at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
- Discussant: Tommaso Valletti, Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics
About PhD in Conversations:
PhD in Conversation provides a space for emerging researchers to share the core ideas of their doctoral work alongside the personal journey that shaped it. Each session brings together original research, lived experience, and an open conversation with expert panellists and the audience—bridging scholarship with public-purpose innovation.
PhD candidate at IIPP with a focus on industrial ecosystems and issues of coordination in production. His work stands at the crossroad of the fields of industrial organisation, information theory and strategy of the firm. He has experience in competition policy and is active in digital industrial policy and policy advocacy.
Head of Research and Associate Professor in Economics
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (UCL IIPP)Cecilia Rikap is associate professor in Economics and Head of Research at IIPP. She is a tenure researcher of the CONICET, Argentina’s national research council, and associate researcher at COSTECH lab, Université de Technologie de Compiègne. She actively advises policymakers, parlamentarians and competition authorities in the Americas and Europe.
Tommaso Valletti is Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics. He has taught at LSE, Rome Tor Vergata, Telecom ParisTech/École Polytechnique and Turin. He directs CEPR’s Research and Policy Network on Competition Policy and is a Non-Executive Director at the Payment Systems Regulator.
Founding Director and Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University. She is a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei.
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