This index organises all research posts by theme and type, making it easy to navigate the evidence base for The Next Wave. Use the search bar below to find posts by keyword, or browse by category using the links.
Search all posts
Browse by category
📚 Research Case Studies
Historical and contemporary case studies that test the book’s framework against real-world evidence. Covers five centuries of technological revolutions, LAC commodity and industrialisation cases, small island economies, and international comparators from Korea to Germany.
🔬 Framework Essays
Conceptual posts that introduce and apply the book’s three analytical lenses: the Human Ecosystem Model, evolutionary economics (variation, selection, diffusion), and state-led transition theory. Start here if you are new to the book’s framework.
📋 Policy Briefs
Actionable posts for policymakers, mapping case study lessons to specific country types — from resource-rich large economies to small island states. Covers green transitions, digital transformation, industrial policy, and state capability building.
Browse by theme
Understanding the Framework
These Framework Essay posts introduce the book’s core analytical tools — evolutionary economics, the Human Ecosystem Model, and the five state functions for change — and explain the patterns of technological revolutions across history.
Five Historical Technological Waves (Chapter 5 evidence)
Posts on the five global revolutions: the First Industrial Revolution (Britain 1760–1830), the Age of Railways and Steam (1820–1880), Steel, Electricity and Telephone (1870–1920), Cars, Planes and Mass Production (1920–1970), and the Digital Revolution (1970–2020). Also includes a summary post on 300 years of revolutions and a forward-looking post on 2020–2070.
LAC Success Cases (Chapter 6 evidence)
Posts on cases where LAC countries built new capabilities or made successful transitions: Costa Rica’s distinctive development trajectory (1950–2010, including the Intel story), Uruguay’s energy transition (2010–2024), Chile’s renewable leap, Brazil’s renewable transformation, Mexico’s mobile leapfrog, and more.
LAC Challenges and Missed Opportunities (Chapter 7 evidence)
Posts on cases where resource endowments failed to deliver transformation: Peru’s guano and Chile’s nitrates, Venezuela’s oil boom, Ecuador and Trinidad oil cases, Brazil’s rubber vs. coffee contrast, Mexico under Díaz, Argentina’s export boom and its limits, and multiple Caribbean and Central American cases.
International Comparators
Non-LAC case studies that illuminate the book’s framework through contrast and comparison: Taiwan and Korea’s industrial miracle, Japan’s savings-led growth and land-tax industrialisation, Germany’s industrial rise and post-war recovery, Britain’s early industrialisation cycles, Estonia’s digital state, Norway’s EV transition, Denmark’s renewable shift, and China’s rapid scaling.
State Strategy and Getting Started (Chapters 9–11 evidence)
Posts on how states can build capabilities and manage transitions: the five state functions for institutional change, Chile’s copper and salmon sectors, Brazil’s Cerrado model, forestry institutions, green transition strategies, and digital transformation case studies.
All posts
-
Cars Built American Mass Consumption.
Ford to Suburbia. Building Mass Consumption. Between 1908 and 1960, the United States built more than an automobile industry. It assembled a new economic system around the car, the suburban home, the highway, and the appliance-filled household. The chain ran from Ford’s Model T to mass-produced suburban housing. It linked a standardized car, a federally…
-
Estonia Built a Digital State.
Law came first, then systems. Governments today face a hard constraint: administrative systems that cannot scale with digital economies. Estonia broke that constraint by cutting transaction costs toward zero. Tax filing fell to minutes, and business registration fell to hours. The main barrier was not technology. It was fragmented legal and institutional rules that blocked…
-
How Brazil Rewired Payments.
Public rails changed finance fast. Why Pix changed Brazilian finance. Brazil’s policymakers still face a pressing question: how can they broaden financial inclusion without subsidizing private monopolies or waiting for markets to coordinate on their own? In November 2020, the central bank launched Pix. Within 15 months, 67% of adults were active users, an adoption…
-
1994-2012: Brazil Chose Consumption Over Investment.
Stability raised demand, not capacity. Brazil solved inflation, then stalled. Brazil solved inflation in 1994, but it replaced one constraint with another. Consumption surged, but productive investment did not keep pace. The paradox was stark. Foreign reserves rose to $328 billion, while manufacturing capacity eroded and infrastructure gaps widened. These changes occurred because credit expanded…
-
1945-1964: Brazil’s Uneven Industrial Push.
Growth without land reform. Brazil built its industry on weak foundations. Latin American policymakers still face a hard question: how do you build industry when land, skills, and capital stay trapped in low-productivity systems? Brazil faced that question after 1945. It pushed industry forward while leaving agrarian structures largely untouched. The central constraint was political,…
-
1930-1945: Brazil’s Industry Boomed.
Control, migration, and hard trade-offs. The Crisis Forced a New Model. Latin America faces a familiar constraint when it tries to shift industries. Capital remains stuck in low-productivity sectors, while much labor stays outside formal systems. Brazil hit this barrier in the 1930s after coffee prices collapsed and export earnings fell. The state burned 78…
-
How Brazil Rebuilt Sao Paulo Coffee.
State action replaced slave labor. Why This Shift Still Matters Today. Brazil’s late-19th-century transformation matters today because it shows how states can redirect labor and capital under hard constraints. In São Paulo, coffee output doubled while slavery collapsed, but the system did not fail. It reorganized. The binding constraints were the sudden loss of coerced…
-
1830-1870: Brazil’s Coffee Trap.
The law fixed the gains. Brazil’s Boom Built a Trap. Latin America still lives with land inequality, thin credit, and commodity booms that burn bright and fade. Those problems were made, not inherited. In Brazil, from 1830 to 1870, coffee made the country the world’s leading coffee exporter. But the same boom tied power more…
-
How Denmark Shifted to Renewable Energy.
Auctions worked, transport stalled. Denmark’s energy transition matters now because many countries face the same constraint: how to shift capital out of fossil systems without breaking markets. The contrast is stark. Denmark built one of the world’s most auction-driven renewable power systems, but transport electrification lagged for years. The main barrier was not technology. The…
-
How Norway Made EVs Normal in 20 Years.
Norway closed the EV cost gap. The state closed the cost gap. Norway closed the EV cost gap. Norway is an oil-rich country. Yet by 2025, nearly all new cars sold there were electric. The shift happened because the state closed the cost-and-charging gap that kept electric vehicles from competing with combustion-engine cars. It used…
-
Mexico 1982-85: When Debt Took Over the State.
Mexico’s crisis reset state priorities. How the debt crisis reset Mexico. In August 1982, Mexico could no longer service its debt. Foreign reserves were nearly gone, so the state redirected policy toward external payment. That shift is the core mechanism in this blog. The crisis did not destroy the state. It turned the state into…
-
Mexico Built Industry, Then Stalled: 1940-1970.
Protection outlasted competitive discipline. Mexico’s mid-century industrial push still shapes debates over green industry and state-led economic change in Latin America. From 1940 to 1970, the country grew by more than 6 percent a year while prices stayed stable. Yet the model also produced structural imbalances and weak competitiveness. The problem was not weak investment…
-
Mexico Won State Power: 1910-1940.
Change without growth. The State Solved One Problem. Mexico’s debates on land, resource control, and state-led development still turn on a problem forged between 1910 and 1940. How do you break elite control without breaking production? The ejido system sits at the center of that question. The revolution began with a collapse. Population fell, capital…
-
How China Scaled Fast: 2005-2026.
And where it hit limits. China’s technology shift matters because policymakers face the same problem: how to scale fast without locking in waste. By 2023, China made more batteries than the world could absorb, yet it still could not master advanced semiconductors. That contrast runs through this story. This blog shows what changed, what drove…
-
How Germany Restarted Growth: 1947-1973.
A single week changed everything. Why do some countries stay stuck after a crisis while others recover fast? In June 1948, West Germany erased 93.5% of its money supply and freed prices in the same week. That shock ended shortages and pulled goods out of black markets. The main problem was too much money chasing…
-
2000-2010: How Korea Redirected Credit.
When SMEs lost finance. Why this decade still matters. Why should LAC policymakers study Korea from 2000 to 2010? Because a leading industrial economy nearly destabilized its financial system as it moved into high-tech production. In the early 2000s, banks sent more credit to households just as global competition intensified and SMEs struggled to borrow.…
-
The Bahamas Hits Tourism Limits.
By the early 1970s, Caribbean policymakers faced a clear paradox, and the Bahamas exemplified it. Tourism growth created wealth but weakened national control over that wealth. Tourist arrivals rose from under 150,000 in the 1950s to more than one million by the late 1960s. Yet income leaked abroad through foreign ownership and remittances. The core…
-
How Tourism Remade the Bahamas Between 1940 and 1960.
Between 1940 and 1960, tourism reshaped daily life across the Bahamas on foundations laid in the 1920s and 1930s. New hotels, airports, and ports changed how people worked and where they lived. Visitors arrived in growing numbers. Foreign capital flowed into land and services. Within one generation, the economy was rebuilt more fully around outside…
-
Britain 1840–1860: Growth and Social Strain.
Railway lines spread across Britain in the 1840s. They changed how goods, workers, and capital moved. Industrial production rose between 1840 and 1860. Cities such as Manchester and Glasgow grew fast. City growth outpaced basic services. Repeated disease outbreaks turned sanitation into a public issue. By the late 1840s, epidemics and concern over living conditions…
