Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages

by Carlota Pérez

"Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital" presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way. Carlota Perez draws upon Schumpeter's theories of the clustering of innovations to explain why each technological revolution gives rise to a paradigm shift and a "New Economy" and how these "opportunity explosions", focused on specific industries, also lead to the recurrence of financial bubbles and crises. These findings are illustrated with examples from the past two centuries: the industrial revolution, the age of steam and railways, the age of steel and electricity, the emergence of mass production and automobiles, and the current information revolution/knowledge society. By analyzing the changing relationship between finance capital and production capital during the emergence, diffusion and assimilation of new technologies throughout the global economic system, this book sheds light on some of the most pressing economic problems of today.

Genres: Economics, Business, Finance, History, Technology, Nonfiction, Science

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Carlota Pérez is a British-Venezuelan scholar specialising in technology and socio-economic development. She researches the concept of Techno-Economic Paradigm Shifts and the theory of great surges, a further development of Schumpeter's work on Kondratieff waves. In 2012 she was awarded the Silver Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.

Perez is currently Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, and since 2006, Professor of Technology and Socio-Economic Development at Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia. In 2003–2005, she was Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Financial Analysis & Policy (CFAP), part of the Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge, where she remains as Research Affiliate. She is also Honorary Professor at SPRU, University of Sussex.