Technological Revolutions and the Periphery: Understanding Global Development Through Regional Lenses

This book evaluates the uneven propagation of technological revolutions, investigating the roots of this phenomenon in the absorptive capabilities that are built by countries and regions at the periphery. To understand this global process, this book looks to two dimensions: time and geography. Temporally, the book follows the sequence of technological revolutions in the last 250 years. With regard to geography, the book studies five different regions at the periphery―China, India, Africa, Russia and Latin America―to understand how they differ in the institutional processes that shape their absorptive capabilities. Focusing on each technological revolution and its impact on those five peripheric regions, the chapters illustrate how each region coped with each shock wave emanating from the center. Providing a truly global outlook of a complex system with a dynamic nature, this book will be of interest to researchers and students of development economics, the economics of innovation, evolutionary economics, and the economics of science and technology.

Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque is Full Professor at the Department of Economics at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). He received his PhD in economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in economics of science and technology, contemporary political economy, and evolutionary microeconomics. His research focuses on integrating evolutionary economics with the economics of development.