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.
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📚 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
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How Tourism Remade the Bahamas in the 1920s.
In the early 1920s, Nassau changed fast. New ships filled the harbor. Luxury hotels rose along the waterfront. More people found work serving a growing stream of visitors. Between 1920 and 1930, the Bahamas moved toward a service economy centered on Nassau and foreign tourists. That shift changed how people made a living, where they…
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Mexico’s 1963 to 1973 Industrial Boom Brought Gains and Strains.
Between 1963 and 1973, Mexico pursued import-substitution industrialization. It supported that strategy with steady investment in energy, transport, and heavy industry. Factories expanded, cities grew, and new jobs moved workers from farms into industry. Daily life changed across the country. The shift brought steady growth, higher investment, and new opportunities for firms and workers. It…
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How US Policy and Finance Expanded the Internet.
By the late 1990s, the internet had moved beyond labs and specialist users. Households and firms used digital networks to communicate, buy, and share information. From 1995 to 2000, federal policy and private capital drove fast growth in information technology. New firms entered the market, and employment grew. The economy started to reorganize around digital…
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How Japan Used Land Taxes to Build Industry.
In the 1870s, a new cash land tax forced farmers to pay the state in money, not rice. Between 1868 and 1905, Japan replaced the old domain system with a national administration. It also began building railways, banks, and model factories. These changes reshaped work and trade. Town wages pulled rural workers into factories, and…
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Mexico 1977-1981: Oil Windfall Drove Growth and Debt.
By 1981, Mexico was buying far more from abroad than four years earlier, even as oil money poured in. Mexico’s 1977–1981 oil boom, driven by PEMEX’s fast expansion and a shift to exports, reshaped the economy. Crude exports rose from 0.20 million barrels per day (1976) to 1.15 million (1981). Production climbed from 650,000 barrels…
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Japan’s Savings Powered Broad, Shared Growth.
In Japan in the 1960s, goods that once felt like luxuries—televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines—became common and changed daily life. This shift took off during 1955–1973, as ministries such as the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the Economic Planning Agency (created in 1955) pushed a national modernization drive. As millions moved from…
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Britain 1780–1820: Markets Jumped, Pay Stayed Flat.
Britain’s first industrial surge did not translate into a steady rise in living standards. Factories and mechanized work expanded output, and coal and iron reshaped production. Yet many families stayed close to subsistence and faced harsh urban conditions. In the early 1800s, roughly 1 million people—over 10% of the population—received poor relief each year, even…
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The Itaipu Boom (1972-1982) Grew Paraguay, Then Exposed Weakness.
In the late 1970s, construction grew by over 20% a year. Investment rose from 15.1% of GDP in 1972 to 37.9% in 1982. Paraguay tied much of this surge to the Itaipu dam, new highways to Brazil, and fast farm expansion on the eastern frontier. Families and firms felt it through new roads, easier credit,…
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Paraguay’s second boom (2003-2013) was built on soy exports
The boom raised incomes—and raised risks. Paraguay’s economy jumped by 14.2% in 2013, and daily life reflected it in jobs, spending, and construction. Between 2003 and 2013, the country moved from weak growth to a decade led by soybean and beef expansion. Itaipu remained a major energy asset in the background. Over the same decade,…
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Honduras 1973–1983: Shock Adjustment, Rising Debt
Shocks force hard trade‑offs in policy. In the early 1980s, Honduras hit a sudden stop in external finance and slashed imports. Shortages and price spikes spread across firms and households. This piece covers 1973–1983, when late‑1970s growth gave way to regional downturn and debt stress. Output contracted in 1982. The episode matters because small primary‑export…
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Guyana Reforms 1991–1996: Growth Outpaced State Capacity
Fast stabilization required a stronger state capacity. In the early 1990s, Guyana moved from price controls, rationed foreign exchange, and state-owned firms to market pricing, private production, and external capital. Between 1991 and 1996, reforms reshaped agriculture, mining, and trade. The program changed incentives, institutions, and production structures. The experience matters because badly distorted economies…
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Guyana 1962–1975: State Control and Commodity Exposure
Independence-era policy shifted power, not fundamentals Reforms deepened Guyana’s commodity vulnerability after independence Independence brought fast policy change, but little structural shift, leaving Guyana’s commodity vulnerability in place. Sugar, bauxite, and rice still drove exports and income, tying growth to global prices. The late 1960s and mid-1970s expansions ran alongside high unemployment and fragile external…
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Panama’s 2003–2014 service boom reshaped growth, not inclusion
Service-led growth drove rapid income convergence Panama’s expansion between 2003 and 2014 ranks among the fastest and longest growth episodes in Latin America. Real GDP grew at close to eight percent a year over much of the decade. Per capita income doubled within the period. By the early 2010s, Panama had reached high-income status. The…
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Panama after 1989: how fast a broken economy can be rebuilt — and what speed leaves behind
A tight window for change after crisis Panama entered the 1990s after a severe economic collapse. Political crisis, sanctions, and the December 1989 U.S. military intervention had cut output by more than 20% in the late 1980s. GDP rebounded by 3.4% in 1990. Yet open unemployment reached 16.8% nationally and 20% in the metropolitan area,…
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Coffee, Industry, and Inequality: Lessons from El Salvador, 1950–1968
Why This Case Matters LAC policymakers are increasingly interested in commodity-based industrial strategies. The minerals behind the energy transition, electrification, ICT, and artificial intelligence give the region new leverage. El Salvador, between 1950 and 1968, shows how a commodity boom can finance industrialization. It also shows how that pivot can proceed without democratization or inclusion.…
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Nicaragua’s Boom and Fracture, 1950–1970: Lessons for LAC Today
Between 1950 and 1970, Nicaragua posted one of Latin America’s fastest growth runs of the postwar decades. Real GDP expanded by 5-7 percent annually, exports diversified beyond coffee, and manufacturing emerged for the first time as a regional activity. Yet by the early 1970s, the country had also accumulated deep social fragilities: extreme land concentration,…
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How an Export Boom Hollowed Out the Honduran State, 1913–1933
In the early twentieth century, Honduras experienced what many policymakers would describe as a success story: a rapid export boom, rising fiscal revenues, modern infrastructure along its coast, and deep integration into global markets. Yet this boom produced a paradox. Economic growth rested on weak state capacity, fragile institutions, and a development path that proved…
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When Money Isn’t Enough
Suriname’s Warning for a Region Awash in Windfalls and Shocks Suriname’s story between 1972 and 1982 is one of the most instructive development failures in modern LAC history — precisely because, by every indicator available at the time, it should have gone differently. When Suriname became independent from the Netherlands in 1975, it inherited substantial…
