Public value

Creating a new framework to understand and recognise where value is really created in economies, and where value is being extracted.

About

In standard economic theory, public policy is justified only if clear market failures are first identified. In this context ‘public goods’ (non-rival, non-excludable activities like clean air, or national defence) are corrections that are made to fix the existence of ‘positive and negative externalities’, such as pollution. While such market failures exist—and need fixing—in this research area, we study whether a broader concept is needed to guide more ambitious policies, similar to those that led to the creation of the welfare state and the mission to put a man on the moon.

Policy implications

IIPP aims to create a new framework for public policy grounded in concepts of public value and public purpose—and the implications of such value creation for production and growth. 

Our work will involve research, the development of new concepts and learning, and the generation of insights into how we might build capacity within the public sector to adapt to new ways of working, influenced by these ideas. 

Projects

Publications

Working papers

• When homes earn more than jobs: the rentierization of the Australian housing market, Josh Ryan-Collins, Cameron Murray
• Theorising and mapping modern economic rents, Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Ryan-Collins, Giorgos Gouzoulis
• Socialising the risks and rewards of public investments: Economic, policy and legal issues, Andrea Laplane and Mariana Mazzucato
• Putting value creation back into 'public value': from market-fixing to market-shaping, Mariana Mazzucato and Josh Ryan-Collins
• The economics of change: Policy and appraisal for missions, market shaping and public purpose, Rainer Kattel, Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Ryan-Collins and Simon Sharpe
• COVID-19 and public-sector capacity, Mariana Mazzucato, Rainer Kattel
• Public value and platform governance, Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Entsminger, Rainer Kattel

Policy

• Creating and measuring dynamic public value at the BBC, Mariana Mazzucato, Rowan Conway, Eleonora Maria Mazzoli, Eva Knoll and Sarah Albala 
• Getting serious about value, Mariana Mazzucato and Rainer Kattel
• The economics of change: Policy appraisal for missions, market shaping and public purpose, Rainer Kattel, Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Ryan-Collins and Simon Sharpe 

Articles

• Putting value creation back into “public value”: from market-fixing to market-shaping, Mariana Mazzucato and Josh Ryan-Collins
• Re-thinking the Definition of 'Public Goods', June Sekera 
• Wealth Creation and The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucato 

Books

• The Value of Everything, Mariana Mazzucato 
• The Public Economy in Crisis; A Call for a New Public Economics, June Sekera 

 View all IIPP publications

News and events

Funders