IIPP applies an analytical lens to the COVID-19 crisis in a new series of public briefs

The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) is working with leading politicians and policymakers around the world at the international, national, regional, and city levels to revive notions of public value and public purpose at the centre of political economy and policy practice. Given what is happening in the world in 2020 with COVID-19, governments must be better equipped to consider how the pandemic will affect their economies and civic infrastructures and to come up with sustainable solutions.

With the team at IIPP, Professor Mariana Mazzucato is currently advising governments and institutions (such as the Vatican and the government of South Africa) on these important issues; to ensure that economies and society in general are better equipped to respond to the inter-related circumstances affected by COVID-19.

As part of this work, IIPP academics, led by Professor Mazzucato, are writing regular policy papers and briefing notes for these institutions. Other contributors include economists like Stephanie Kelton and James Galbraith.

In order to share IIPP’s thinking and advice in a more public way, we are also publishing a series of briefing papers on our website. These will explore some of the key economic issues facing the world in the time of COVID-19 and recommend ways governments might respond to complex issues in healthcare, debt relief, food distribution and banking.

The first in these series, “Stakeholder capitalism during and after COVID-19”, posits that the COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity to change the fundamental way that public and private sectors interact to shape a better kind of capitalism. National governments should “act as market shapers not just market fixers” and should reward value creation instead of value extraction to ensure inclusive growth.

In the second briefing paper of the series, “Inequality, unemployment and precarity”, IIPP considers the potential benefits of universal basic income, cash transfers and job guarantees which could have both equity and macroeconomic benefits in the medium and long term. “Governments must take a more active role in addressing the short-term impact of the pandemic on inequalities, but also use this crisis as an opportunity to reshape the economy by improving working relations and prioritising a more egalitarian income distribution.”

IIPP will continue to post more briefing papers in the coming weeks.

Read Stakeholder Capitalism During and After COVID-19

Read Inequality, Unemployment and Precarity

Read Reshaping Global Health Systems in Response to COVID-19

Read A green economic renewal after the COVID-19 crisis