Do innovation and economic vitality come from a government's industrial policy of investment, as Mazzucato suggests?

Or, is it something else found in a free market, such as what Deirdre McCloskey and Alberto Mingardi point out in their book,The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State:

Profits signal the preferences of ordinary people massing about in markets, proving that a certain move, a certain technique, a certain innovation has been wisely put forward. Entrepreneurs are free to enter new lands, imagine useful goods and graceful services. Consumers are free to choose. Such a negative liberty has led in the past two centuries to an enormous increase, too, in the ill-named "positive liberty," also known as "income."

Professor Mariana Mazzucato believes governments actually do much more for an economy. In her booksMission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing CapitalismandThe Entrepreneurial State,she argues that it is industrial policy, and not market forces, that fosters innovation.

Others, such as Deirdre McCloskey and Alberto Mingardi, disagree.

Read the starter pack of links found in the W1 Objectives, Readings, and Resources section. Perform further research. Then come to your own informed opinion.

• Government investor, risk-taker, innovator(Links to an external site.)Mariana Mazzucat
• A Critique of Mazzucato's Entrepreneurial State(Links to an external site.)Alberto Mingardi
• Failing at Liftoff(Links to an external site.)Alberto Mingardi