Keston K. Perry's research examines how domestic and international forces impact industrial development in Latin American and Caribbean extractive economies. Perry finds that resource revenues can fund industrialization if used strategically alongside supportive institutions. Perry's current work analyzes Bolivia, Chile, and Trinidad and Tobago over the past two decades and will result in journal articles and a book on how global finance undermined state-led industrialization in the region. Perry also leads a project analyzing the financialization of resource corporations in developing countries and how this affects economic policy.

1. Current Research
Interests
Five-year Research
Mission –
Keston K. Perry, PhD
My current research examines the changing socio-economic order and interplay of domestic and external
forces on the state’s capacity in extractive economies to promote broad-based industrial development in
Latin American and Caribbean countries. While mainstream theories like the resource curse hypothesis and
new institutional economics claim that weak economic and political institutions in resource abundant econo-
mies undermine industrial growth. I find that resource rents can constitute critical public investments along
with domestic coalitions and developmental institutions can advance industrialization and technological
capability development in new productive activities. My work extends to comparative case studies of Boliv-
ia, Chile and Trinidad and Tobago – over the last two decades in the period of the commodity “super-cycle”.
This program will comprise several journal articles drawing upon existing empirical work and a book manu-
script entitled ‘Resource booms, busts and the decline of state-led industrialization in Latin America: how
global finance has re-defined the development paradigm’. The book makes two interrelated arguments: the
21st century commodity boom was not transformative due to the interplay of domestic and international
forces that undermined state-led resource-based industrialization in Latin America. Instead, the neoliberal
transformation, in particular, the expansive role of of financialized capital and international economic insti-
tutions have led to the reprimarization of the economy and industrial decline.
I am also currently working on a Special Issue on the rise and demise of resource-based industrialization
with colleagues at King’s College London and Institute of Social Studies(Hague). As part of this project, I
will launch a data-gathering project to build a database of oil, gas and mining corporations that operate in
these three developing countries to determine their level of financialization, shifts in business strategy and
wider economic policy effects since the 1980s.
Political economy
of development
Trinidad and Tobago – 2014 to present (SOAS, University of London)
Haiti – 2018 (Tufts University)
Resource-based
industrialization
Innovation dynam-
ics in developing
countires
State and non-state
actors in industrial
and development
policy process
Renewable energy
development and
climate policy
Fieldwork
Research grant proposals
and Fellowships
Publications and
Works-in-Progress
I am a political economist with interdisciplinary
training in development studies investigating
industrial development in resource extractive
economies in the Latin American and Caribbean
region. I utilize qualitative research methods
such as archival techniques, policy-oriented, inter-
view data, heterodox economic analysis to uncov-
er context-specific nature of the distribution of
power, and analyze shifts in the state over time
and development outcomes.
Three Research Fellowships over 5-year period.
Political Economy proposal to the American Political Science
Association to host a workshop on the ‘the current state and
future of resource-based industrialization’ (December 2018)
Proposal to INET for data-gathering project on financialization
of major resource-extracting corporations operating in develop-
ing countries within broader resource-based industrial research
program (December 2019).
Proposal to be submitted to Faculty Early Career Development
Program (CAREER) National Science Foundation (Spring 2020)
Additional proposals will be prepared for the Global Develop-
ment Network, and for my second project, Hewlett Foundation,
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Climate Works Foundation.
The dynamics of industrial development in a resource-rich
society: A political economy analysis, Journal of Developing
Societies, 34 (3):1–30. DOI: 10.1177/0049085718786136.
Biographical sketch
Second Project (2022-2024)
To offer analytically rigorous and policy-relevant
research work and research-driven teaching that
make economics more relevant to the lived experi-
ences of countries and populations in Latin Ameri-
can and the Caribbean that enable them to use
natural resources more equitably in an ecologically
sustainable, and economically prosperous way.
Research Objective
Economic Development can incorporate my expertise on
resource-based industrialization and technological change
The Practice of Development Policy and International Coopera-
tion can integrate my knowledge of industrial policy experienc-
es in Latin America and the Caribbean.
New course: ‘Booms, Busts and new developmentalism’ will
trace the empirical dynamics over the last two decades in
extractive economies and foreground theoretical explanations
such as new developmentalism from an historical perspective.
My second project ‘Financing renewable energy amidst domestic and
international economic pressures’, investigates how domestic and inter-
national political-economic developments influence the financing of
renewable energy projects in Latin American countries. This work adds
a political economy analysis and provides policy-relevant recommenda-
tions based on an understanding of the constraints, complex arrange-
ments of financing renewable energy to advance a climate-resilient and
low carbon development trajectory.
The effects of neoliberalism on class restructuring and
development policy
Environmental inequality index for developing countries
Natural resource-based development and financialization
at the Political Economic Research Institute
Course teaching
Launched a progressive, independent media initiative called
‘The Upend Podcast’ aimed at building a grassroots movement
that addresses social inequities, political exclusion, and
economic development issues.
Departmental Collaborations
Grassroots initiative
Figure 1. The Structural (S), Technical (T), and Social-Political (P) dimensions of political economy analysis of industrializing economies
Demand and domestic
availability of finance; influence
of trade market actors; Debt and
International Bond commitments
Skills, resources, capabilities Informal patron-client networks;
fragmented administrative
structures; rent capture; arbitrary
intervention/policy hijack
Structural Technical Social / Political
In Press:
Institutions, Innovation and Development: a critical review
and political economy analysis of late-industrialising coun-
tries, Cambridge Journal of Economics. Expected: 2019.
Resubmitted:
Structural constraints, indigenous capability and the political
economy of industrialization: ‘contingent power’ in the rise and
decline of steel manufacturing in a resource-dependent state’,
Review of International Political Economy. Expected: 2019.
Under review:
State developmentalism and the dismal prospect of
resource-based industrialization in Latin America, target-
ed at Economy and Society.
Technological capability and industrialization in Trinidad
and Tobago: an integrated political economy analysis of
the state-owned telecoms sector, targeted at Canadian
Journal of Development Studies.
Social movements and industrial restructuring in a
resource-dependent, democratic developmental state,
targeted at Development and Change.
Integrating energy-subsidy reform and climate policy in a
development context: how not to implement policy, with
special reference to Haiti, targeted at Energy Research
and Social Sciences.
Innovation versus industrial policies: a tale of competing
approaches in the developing world, targeted at Develop-
ment and Change.
Human Development and the World Market in Latin
America and the Caribbean, targeted at Development
Policy Review.
Working Papers:
Research Program (2019-2022)