Final observations

Abstract

In the last 25 years economics as a science has been influenced by a number of developments. I will just mention three of these developments. The first is the computer with its logical result in the form of computer science and electronic data processing. The second is marketing. Economics, especially managerial economics, was mainly directed toward problems in finance, organization theory, cost accounting and production planning. The third is the development and the resulting impact on economics of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology. To make things more complicated: the developments I mentioned are interrelated. To give just one example: developments in cognitive psychology are connected with those in computer science, for instance, on the subject of artificial intelligence. One of our distinguished lecturers, Professor Simon, did quite a lot of research in this field.