A bold interpretation of how the changing relationship between technological advances and financial capital shapes the pattern of economic cycles, this path-breaking book will provide essential insights for business leaders, policymakers, academics and others concerned with managing change in the world economy.

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.

‘It was Carlota Perez in the early 1980s, who designated the major changes in technology systems, such as mechanization, electrification or computerization, as "changes of techno-economic paradigm" a designation which has since been widely adopted. In this book she offers many new insights into these complex processes of social, economic and technological change. She traces the interactions between that part of the economy commonly known as "financial capital" and the evolution of technologies. Although this was an important aspect of Schumpeter’s original work, it has been neglected by his followers, so that the book fills an important gap in the literature on business cycles and innovations. I most strongly commend it to all those attempting to understand the past and future evolution of technology and the economy.’

‘Before I read this book I thought that the history of technology was – to borrow Churchill’s phrase – merely “one damned thing after another”. Not so. Carlota Perez shows us that historically technological revolutions arrive with remarkable regularity, and that economies react to them in predictable phases. Her argument provides much needed perspective not just on history, but on our own times. And especially on our own information revolution.’

'This is a fascinating book, well worth reading, and reflecting on.'

- Review in The Journal of Socio- Economics, August 2003 by
Richard R. Nelson, George Blumenthal Professor of International and Public Affairs,
Columbia University, New York, US

'The dynamics of capitalism are driven by the intersection of the development and deployment of transformational technologies and the behavior of financial institutions and markets, yet for both historians and theoreticians these two domains have been virtually walled off from each other since Schumpeter. Now Carlota Perez has defined a frame of reference for analyzing the recurring cycles of boom and bust that characterize the past 250 years of economic development, one that calls to mind the synthetic vision of Fernand Braudel's great work on Capitalism and Civilization. In doing so, Carlota Perez has also provided a road map to relevance both for scholars and investors who, having survived the Great Bubble of 1999-2000, must needs concern themselves with what happens next.'

-William Janeway, Vice Chairman, Warburg Pincus, US
Founder CERF, Cambridge [University] Endowment for Research in Finance, UK

'…an excellent job of showing the interplay between innovation and capital markets.'

- Michael Mauboussin, Managing Director Equity Research, Credit Suisse/First Boston
Adjunct professor of finance at Columbia University Graduate School of Business, New York

'Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital" is the crystallization of a sustained research effort undertaken by the author for more than twenty years, examining the role of new technologies in socio- economic development processes across the world... 'In the early eighties Carlota Perez had already acquired recognition in international circles involved with technological and industrial development, innovation, etc. Her pioneering 1983 article about the role of microelectronics in global economic development became the unavoidable reference for anyone approaching the study of that theme. The field of study she helped create, in relation to this phenomenon, has grown through the years, and she is widening it now to incorporate the way in which financial capital participates in the emergence, promotion, difusion and depletion of each technological revolution and of the new techno-economic paradigm that accompanies it...
'It is a great contribution to the understanding of the interaction between financial capital and technological progress. ...it represents an interesting challenge for organizations such as CAF and its stockholder countries while it helps fulfill one of the new objectives of this multilateral institution in the sense of designing our own agenda for development, with an integral vision, capable of helping us move forward in the promotion of competitiveness and in facilitating an equitable insertion of Latin Merica in the world economy.'

-Enrique García, President of CAF (Andean Development Corporation)

'Carlota Perez... is a perceptive and unique observer of the mutations that characterize the economy at present, but she fulfills this task from a standpoint that seems to have been forgotten by most professional economists, absorbed as they usually are by the complicated details of the conjuncture, unable to look up and encompass the scene a few months ahead. Her book, the fruit of an admirable stubbornness, mellowed in the course of at least three decades, is an interpretation of history in connection with long term technological transformations, inspired in Schumpeter´s ideas...
'Carlota Perez' writings are organized... around her concept of techno-economic paradigm, which shows the mesh of causes and consequences among technology, politics, society and culture. It is a concept with an enormous explanatory power and with the important virute of being also an effective antidote for technological determinism...
'...this book is in my view -being sure not to exaggerate- indispensable reading for anyone trying to understand the world that it has been our lot to live in.'

-Ignacio Avalos, International Consultant, former President of CONICIT, Venezuela

'Perez provides a fresh analysis of technological, financial and social booms and busts in an engaging and refreshing way. The book weaves a compelling new fabric of observation and theory, and shows that something can be done to learn from, anticipate, and deal constructively with the tribulations of interlinked technological, economic and social change. It does so concisely and in an idiom that bridges abstract economic theory with tangible human history and experience. If it is brought to their attention - as it should - this compact book will give hope to those scholars, students and policy analysts who wonder what really happened in the cybertechnology/internet gold-rush prior to 2001 and what could possibly lie ahead.'

- From 'Ships, chips and whatever is next', review in Science and Public Policy, October 2002, pp. 397-8
by Morley Lipsett, Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology,
Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

'While the growing literature of neo-Schumpeterian economics has focused on technological change, Carlota Perez' book brings back Schumpeter, the scholar of finance. Not only that, Perez manages to remarry for the first time two main aspects of Schumpeter's work, technological change and finance, in a historical account which is both sweeping and profound. The result is a book with important and urgent messages for economic policy, also in the developing countries that experience the peripheral effects of the powerful systems of innovation and finance in the core countries. This book provides a qualitative understanding that is needed for a better economic policy.'

- Erik Reinert, The Other Canon and SUM, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway

'The financial captains - in Tom Wolfe's memorable phrase, "the Masters of the Universe" - would be well-served by this dose of history. So, too, would the leaders of productive capital, as they struggle to add value in a frenzy of financial speculation. And as for policy-makers, the answer is obvious - Perez's insights are not just important; they are urgent...
'Do read the book. It is important. It is accessible. It is well presented. Its also fun.'

- Raphie Kaplinsky, IDS, University of Sussex and CENTRIM, University of Brighton, UK
From Review in Technovationn

'As regards the relationship between technology, the economy and society, Carlota Perez is one of the world's most innovative researchers. In this book she presents a systematic analysis of those interactions, empirically grounded and theoretically coherent, centered on the dynamics of financial capital, as the strategic instrument of globalization. It is a fundamental work to understand the structural transformations of the economy and society in the information age.'

Manuel Castells, University of California-Berkeley and Universitat Oberta of Catalunya

'…a book that will stretch the imagination, broaden the horizons, and challenge the thinking of the business economist immersed in his daily tasks, this book is worth time invested in reading it.' Book review Oct, 2003, Business Economics

Edmund A. Mennis, Investment Management Consultant, Palos Verdes Estates, California

'…filled with exactly the same enthusiasm and considered thought that enlivens her conversation. It is one of the most enjoyable economics books I have read for some time.' Book Review in Economic Record, September 2004, 80 (250), p.354-355

Mardi Dungey, Economics Division, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,
Deputy-Director Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Australian National University

See also references to the book in the following business journals:

May 8 Survey of the IT Industry: Paradise Lost, pp. 3-4, in the May 10th-16th 2003 issue of The Economist. Separate Supplement after p. 46

November 11 Survey of Outsourcing: Faster, cheaper, better, pp. 10-12, in the November 13th-19th 2004 issue of The Economist. Separate Supplement after p. 68

Special report: The future of e-business; How E-Biz Rose, Fell, and Will Rise Anew By Robert D. Hof and Steve Hamm in the May 13, 2002 issue of Business Week, pp. 64-72

Is the Information Revolution Dead? If history is a guide, it is not
By W. Brian Arthur, March 2002 Issue of Business 2.0, pp. 65-72

Cover article by Robert D. Hof: Why Tech Will Bloom Again, Business Week, August 25, 2003, pp. 64-71

Is Infotech all washed up? Business Week, May 24th 2004

Carlota Perez: The Thought Leader Interview by Art Kleiner in Strategy+Business, Issue 41, Winter 2005, pp. 131-137 (download .pdf 150K)

El protagonismo de la tecnología, book review by Patricia Fernández de Lis, in Spain's EL PAIS, Sunday, April 10, 2005, p. 4, Business Section.

Interview in Bilbao's El Correo December 4, 2006

Other relevant links:

Before and after the bubble, in "The opportunity", IBM 2004 Annual Report Prospectus

Anticipating the future by looking at the past, by Irving Vladawsky-Berger, August 2005

Carlota Perez is Honorary Research Fellow at SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, UK; Visiting Senior Research Fellow 2003-05, CERF, Cambridge University, UK, and International Consultant and Lecturer on change strategies and technology policy, Eureka A.C., Caracas.