Carlota Perez
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carlota Perez is a Venezuelan scholar and expert on technology and socio-economic development most famous for her concept of Techno-Economic Paradigm Shifts and her theory of great surges, a further development of the Kondratieff waves.
[edit] Career
Perez is, since 2006, Professor of Technology and Socio-Economic Development at Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia. Since 2003, she is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Financial Analysis and Policy (CFAP), Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge. She is also, permanently, Honorary Research Fellow at SPRU, University of Sussex, and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the United Nation University's Institute of New Technologies, Maastricht, The Netherlands. She is particularly active as an international consultant and lecturer.
Perez has held posts in the government of her country, first in the Institute of Foreign Commerce in relation with the technology aspects of the North South Dialogue (1975-1977), later as founding Director of Technology in the Ministry of Industry (1980-1983). Under her directorship, the first venture capital agency, FINTEC, was established. She has been consultant to most of the major public and private companies in Venezuela, in particular to INTEVEP, the Research and Development affiliate of PDVSA, the national petroleum company.
As international consultant, she has worked for various multilateral organizations, including the OECD, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNDP and the World Bank. She has been consultant and lecturer in private companies and business events and has advised various industry associations, Ministries and Councils of Industry or Science and Technology, R&D institutes and development banks in Latin America (Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Brazil) and other regions (Canada, Norway, Estonia). Several elements of the European Union's Lisbon Strategy are based on her work as well.
[edit] Theory
Carlota Perez is a neo-Schumpeterian and a student of Christopher Freeman, with whom she closely collaborates. Her articles, from the early 1980s, have contributed to the present understanding of the relationship between basic innovations, technical and institutional change, and economic development. Her recent book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (Edward Elgar 2002) (ISBN 1-84376-331-1) has had a very positive response from academics as well as from the financial and the technology-based business communities.
