Jane Jacobs was one of the brightest minds of the XXth century; she is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities, an excellent book on urbanism and a a precursor to modern complexity theory.
She also derived economic principles from the ground up, based 100% on real-world evidence, and wrote her own analysis of how the economy really works – in contrast with mainstream macroeconomic theory, which is intractable wishful thinking.
She gives an example of how Japan started replacing imported bicycles with shop-made bike parts and eventually complete bikes, thus giving them the technology and expertise to become the most technologically advanced and richest nation.