Abstract

It has become widely acknowledged that the current on-going crisis represents a turning point in the global economy. However, it is neither the first nor, most probably, the last of these moments in history. In fact, it has been shown that such decisive moments tend to appear every five to six decades, following a recurrence of cyclical progressions, which Kondratieff (1935/1926) statistically presented in his “long waves”. Schumpeter (1982/1939), building on the analysis of the long waves, further discussed the cyclical behaviour of the capitalist economy, provoked by surges of technological innovation. Subsequently, departing from the Schumpeterian understanding of the economy, Perez (1983) postulates that those recursive patterns are not explicitly an economic phenomenon. They are rather explained as a result of a dynamic harmony and disharmony of the techno-economic sphere, on the one hand, and the socio-institutional, on the other.