Mariana Mazzucato, 58, fondly recalls the year she spent in Mexico as an exchange student in 1989. The Italian-American economist attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the country’s largest university and the largest in Latin America, and at the age of 20 came to understand that there was a gap between economic reality and economic theory that needed explaining.
“Everyone was very interested in learning why different economic theories were limited in their ability to explain what was happening in Mexico,” she recalls in an interview with EL PAÍS.
The experience later led Mazzucato to pursue both a master’s degree and a PhD in economics. Since then, the economist, now director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, has focused on examining economic tools through a critical and socially minded lens, far removed…
