The impact of information technology upon economic science

Prometheus

Volumn 9, Issue 1, 1991, Pages 35-61

  David, Paul A ^a   Steinmueller, W Edward ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

computers; Economics; information technology; social science

Indexed keywords

EID: 84928836563     PISSN: 08109028     EISSN: 14701030     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/08109029108631904     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. Abraham Peled, ‘The next computer revolution’, Scentific American, 257, 4, October 1987, p. 57.
2. See Herbert A. Simon, ‘The steam engine and the computer: what makes technology revolutionary’, EDUCOM Bulletin, 22, 1, 1986, pp. 2-5.
3. cf. for example, Geoffrey C. Fox and Paul C. Messina, ‘Advanced computer architectures’, Scienlific American, 257, 4, October 1987, pp. 44-52.
4. See for example, James D. Foley, ‘Interfaces for advanced computing’, Scientific American, 257, 4, October 1987, pp. 127-35; and James D. Foley and Andries van Dam, Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1982. On the ‘efficiency’ of visual presentation of data, see Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, Cheshire, Connecticut, 1983.
5. See for example, Michael M. Roberts, ‘The need for a national higher education computer network’, EDUCOM Bulletin, 22, 1, 1986, pp. 9-10. The majority of computer users among university researchers today who do have access to networks can transmit data at approximately 10,000 bits per second. By way of contrast, it is projected that in some areas, such as high energy particle physics research or geophysics research using remote sensing, data transmission rates in the range of hundreds of millions of bps will be required.
6. A somewhat more balanced view is given in Simon, op. cit.: “It seems equally obvious to me that computers will not revolutionize education until there are massive changes in the organizational and administrative structure of the educational system as well.”
7. GAUSS is a general purpose language for stating and solving linear algebra problems. It was developed commercially by Edlefsen for the IBM PC.
8. These deficiencies are directly related to the sequential storage of data on the tape medium. Mass storage systems that can access any portion of their data with little overhead cost permit very different software and data organisation methods. Currently, the high costs of such systems, including large capacity magnetic discs, limit improvements in specialised development of these media for economic research.
9. Many reasons underlie this proliferation and we do not believe a basis currently exists for judging whether the benefits of reducing the number of standards outweigh the private and social costs of such a reduction.
10. See Drucilla Ekwurzel and Bernard Saffran, Online information retrieval for economists — the economic literature index’, Journal of Economic Literature, 23, December 1985, pp. 1728-63.
11. This is a speculative statement since there has been no organised collection of data on patterns of computer use within the economics profession. The statisticians are better informed; see W.F. Eddy, Computers in Statistical Research: Report of a Workshop, Institute for Mathematical Statistics, 1986.
12. Our comments on supercomputer use, in this and the next paragraph, owe much to private communication with John Rust of the University of Wisconsin.
13. More generally, many data collection efforts are natural monopolies since, in effect, a single good is being produced with no substitutes. Production of the same good by multiple parties merely guarantees that, since users will pay for only one of the item, the price will be higher. In some cases, however, opportunities for product differentiation may sustain several data gathering efforts.