Professor Mazzucato’s The Value of Everything shortlisted for FT Business Book of the Year

Announcing the contenders for this year's prize in the Financial Times, its management editor Andrew Hill says the list represents the "ups and downs of capitalism", with Professor Mazzucato’s "thought-provoking" book arguing "for a more sustainable form of capitalism" and pushes us to get away from a simplistic idea that markets are always good and governments bad.

The Value of Everything: Making and taking in the global economy argues that modern economies reward activities that extract value rather than create it—and that this must change to ensure a capitalism that works for us all. The book scrutinises the way in which economic value has been determined and reveals how the difference between value creation and value extraction has become increasingly blurry. It is through this blurriness, Professor Mazzucato contends, that has allowed certain actors in the economy to portray themselves as value creators, while in reality they were just moving existing value around or, even worse, destroying it.

The prize will go to the 'most compelling and enjoyable' work and will be awarded in November. You can view the full shortlist here.