By the year 2000, the word “biotechnology” had started to acquire a new weight in economic and policy circles. The Human Genome Project was cresting toward its completion, and suddenly there was a sense—sometimes anxious, sometimes breathless—that the future would be written in genes and proteins as much as in silicon. For anyone trying to […]
If you asked most economists or policymakers at the end of the 1990s what would transform national economies next, the conversation would have circled inevitably to telecommunications. Deregulation—so often debated, often contentious—had swept through much of Europe, Asia, and the Americas by 1999, upending the old model of state-run monopolies. For those tasked with measuring […]
In 1999, the idea of buying books, shoes, or even groceries online still struck many as either wildly futuristic or quietly risky. Yet the undercurrent of commercial innovation was unmistakable. For economists or statisticians hoping to track the expansion of early ecommerce platforms, the search starts with an imperfect tool: ISIC 6201—computer programming activities. In […]
Estimating the impact of software piracy at the close of the 1990s is a task that—despite the best intentions—often resists straightforward measurement. In 1998, piracy was front-page news in some places, but mostly an ambient risk, a silent factor lurking beneath the official numbers. For analysts seeking to make sense of its effects, ISIC 6201—computer […]
In 1998, the legacy of the Asian Financial Crisis still weighed heavily across the region’s economies. The crisis itself—unfolding through 1997 and into the following year—left few sectors untouched. For those interested in the intersection of economic contraction and infrastructure, the power generation industry stands out as a particularly telling case. ISIC 3510—electric power generation, […]
The late 1990s stand out as a moment of rapid, almost chaotic, change for communications infrastructure worldwide. Nowhere is this more evident than in the sudden proliferation of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In 1997, “getting online” was still a novelty for many, but the groundwork for a global digital economy was being laid—one domain registration, […]
There’s a particular uncertainty to studying genomics at its inception—especially if you’re doing so through the lens of economic data. By 1997, genomics was shedding its reputation as a purely academic pursuit, becoming a field with real commercial gravity. Still, the boundaries were fuzzy. Startups and university spinouts worked alongside established research institutes, and the […]
The mid-1990s, for anyone who cares to look closely, mark a period of unmistakable dynamism in telecommunications. Nowhere is this clearer than in the expansion of mobile phone networks, a transformation that left its mark on both developed and emerging markets. ISIC 6420—Telecommunications—serves as the formal backbone for statistical mapping. Yet, like all such systems, […]
Measuring the effects of EU single-market policies on Europe’s power sector in 1996 is an exercise in reading both what’s visible in the data and what is only partially documented. The mid-90s brought a surge of legislation and, soon after, a wave of restructuring—especially in the electricity industry. The intention was clear: break down national […]
For those interested in the digital economy’s genealogy, the year 1995 represents something of a prelude—a period dense with experimentation, hesitation, and the kind of entrepreneurial activity that would, within just a few years, become known as the dot-com boom. Yet, these early digital startups, the “precursors” to the wave of late-90s internet companies, are […]
For anyone examining the rise of the commercial internet, the story of the mid-1990s is inseparable from the invisible infrastructure that made it possible: the backbone. In 1995, the phrase “internet backbone” had a technical ring, more familiar to engineers than to the general public, but its impact was about to reshape economies. The work […]
The mid-1990s were a time of real uncertainty—and ambition—in the North American power sector. Deregulation was no longer a distant policy proposal. It was, in many states and provinces, an unfolding reality. For economists and policymakers, tracking the earliest effects of these reforms meant turning to whatever consistent datasets were available. ISIC 3510—electric power generation, […]
Charting the development of biotechnology in the mid-1990s is, for any analyst or policymaker, a challenge defined as much by the boundaries of data as by the field’s scientific frontiers. By 1994, biotech had already proven itself as more than a passing trend, yet the industry’s true contours remained elusive. ISIC 7210—research and development on […]
The early 1990s occupy a strange place in the memory of the software industry—especially for those who tracked the fortunes of multimedia. In 1993, the phrase “interactive CD-ROM” was a badge of innovation, still a few years from being supplanted by the web, but already everywhere on the lips of educators, publishers, and software developers. […]
The story of electricity reform in Latin America is, in some ways, a chronicle of ambition. In 1993, both Chile and Argentina stood as early experimenters with privatization in the power sector—steps that would later ripple across the continent. For those seeking to measure the real consequences of these reforms, ISIC 3510—electric power generation, transmission, […]
The early 1990s were formative years for the geographic information systems (GIS) industry. In 1992, GIS was at once established in certain research circles and still novel as a commercial proposition. For policymakers and analysts hoping to trace the sector’s evolution, ISIC 6201—computer programming activities—offers a place to start, but, as always, not the full […]