New comment: As I have noted somewhere in these discussions, I propose that as a a starting point economic 'cycles' should have a strong role in periodisation, because without those, we are moving outside the Kondratieff framework. Periods would then be simply named after perceived leading technologies, they would represent 'paradigms' but what drives the transition from one to the other would be difficult to argue.
To may knowledge, the most comprehensive book on long waves is Long Cycles, Prosperity and War in the Modern Age, by Joshua S. Goldstein, Yale University Press 1988. Luckily, the whole book is available online (link above). There, in Part One, Debates, chapter 4, Goldstein compares all the existing data series and discusses their merits. There, I found this periodisation from p.90 quite convincing:
Industrial Growth Rates after Van Duijn 1983, in Goldstein, p.90 UK U.S. Germany France Japan 1840s-1870s 3.0 6.2 4.3 1.7 ? 1870s-1890s 1.7 4.7 2.9 1.3 ? 1890-1913 2.0 5.3 4.1 2.5 2.4 1920-1929 2.8 4.8 0 8.1 3.4 1929-1948 2.1 3.1 0 -0.9 -0.2 1948-1973 3.2 4.7 9.1 6.1 9.4
I have tried to plot this as a bar chart with the periodisations as a baseline on x axis using gnuplot but failed. It would be good to be able to make our own charts and curves if we have raw data available.
NOTE: This document was updated using the 'create new revision' option in 'publishing options' at the very bottom of the edit mask for this entry. All group members should also be able to edit this and other pages of the emerging 'book'. When changing existing entries the 'create new revision' button creates wiki-style versioning.
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NOTE: as Brian has noted, there are some discrepancies between my timeline and for instance the table by Carlota Perez. Yet the main difference is that I follow the Freeman/Soete model, which Carlota Perez also does, with the only difference, that she dates the beginning of a great surge at the point of invention of the technology, whereas Freeman and Soete take the reaching of maturity as its beginning. What I have also done is to link the techno-economic cycles with phases of expansion and contraction. What this exactly signifies needs to be clarified - need to go back to literature, yet mainly based on the notion of the overall tendency of the profit rate and of economic growth. Compared to my initial periodisation, I have added some more fine grained categories towards the end, because this is where discussions will occur, about where we really are and which terms to use for which period.
I think also we need to layer somehow the 50-60 year Kondratieff cycles with the longer world system cycles.
This Timeline could also be arranged as a 'book'
Timeline 1890 - 2010
1890 - 1914
Belle Epoque
expansion
1914/18 - 1938/45
Age of Extremes
contraction
1938/45 - ca 1967/73 Fordism/Keynisianism
expansion
1971/73 - 1993 Post-Fordism, Toyotism
contraction
1993- 2000 Information society, Network Society
expansion
2000s -07/ 09 regulatory crisis, pure Financialism
201? maturity phase