Carlota Perez’s Video
Lecture to Estonian
Ministry of Economy
By Kurt Smetana
#27289709
Carlota Perez - consultant and
researchers in the field of technoeconomic paradigm shifts
Lecture to Estonian official to
promote a deeper understanding of
what is happening in the global
market, specifically in how its related
to technology
Ages of Technological
Advance
Tech Progress Happens in “Waves of Change”
5 Revolutions in last 200 Years
 Age of Information Technology, Global
Communications, began in 1971
(microprocessor)
 Age of Oil, Air Travel, Mass Production, began
in 1910
 Steel, Electricity, Trans-Continental
Communication, 1875
 Railways, Coal, Steam Engine, 1830s
 Industrial Revolution, 1771
 Age of Biotechnology, Nanotechnology,
15% Certain in 2020
 Each Wave has a different growth
potential
 Each Wave has a “big bang,” which
occurs, after the technology becomes
massively used/produced
 First phase - eruption, Second Phase infrastructure, Third Phase – Synergy
 Opportunities flow through several
industries, and both upstream and
downstream
 Most important characteristic that makes a
tech. revolution, revolutionary, is its
“double nature”
 Powerful cluster of new, dynamic
technologies, that bring explosive growth
and structural change
 Also brings generic technology (able to be
used for almost anything) and
organizational principals (pyramids to
networks)
 Allows organization and control of all
previous technologies
WTO (Free Trade) does not
consider the following:
 Cultural Adaptation (familiarity)
 Setting up of institutional facilitators
(rules and regulations, government)
 Resistance from established
firms/institutions
 Functional separation between financial
capital and production capital
 Paradigm shift led by financial capital,
which forms bubble, which bursts, leading
to hyper-adaptation (common-sense)
 Production capital then controls
propagation
 Huge surge is divided into two extremely
different periods. Installation period vs.
Deployment period
Recommendation
Be ahead of the game, and invest in up and
coming developments.
Paradigm shift policy very important. Smaller
countries must “locate policy targets in context”
Have a deep understanding of what is going on.