My specific concerns with Trump's plans are that they are likely to investments in infrastructure where the private returns are highest (for example toll roads and bridges) rather than where the public gains are greatest.
Mariana MazzucatoThere is a lot of flesh to be put on the bones - but there is at least an opening for a more pragmatic, less ideological debate about how to build economies that work for people, within the limits of our planet.
Mariana MazzucatoIt would be a mistake to overstate the similarities between the Brexit vote and Trump's win - but there are common themes, not least in the rallying cries that the winning campaigns used. They focused on a supposed economic threat posed by outsiders, as immigrants or as trade partners. This fuelling of anxieties underpinned a narrative centered on the need to "regain control," whether of borders or of economic forces.
Mariana MazzucatoToo many politicians seem to reach for 'infrastructure' as the default answer to investment, as if roads and bridges were the answer to everything. Even the IMF and the World Bank seem to mainly offer infrastructure spending as an alternative to austerity, although they are right to focus on the need for investment.
Mariana Mazzucato