Forging a new alliance between economics and engineering

Economists and engineers have played a vital role in addressing the challenges posed by economic and technological progress. Related disciplines have intertwined with each other, leading to mutual cross-fertilization. However, their roles and relationships need to be reconsidered in a society increasingly influenced by the cluster of organizational and market innovations induced by artificial intelligence technologies. Looking at the history of the intriguing relationships between the two disciplines, in this paper three paradigms for the economics–engineering nexus are identified—economics “for/and/as” engineering—and their dimensions are discussed. This investigation enables to infer possible disciplinary scenarios in relation to the contemporary and future society. The paper calls for a new “alliance à la Prigogine” between economics and engineering driven by a transdisciplinary-oriented change in the epistemology and methods of the two disciplines and in their way of being and interacting. The mission of the alliance is to restore a unified perspective of knowledge and putting the study of complexity in the foreground. The conclusions emphasize that implementing the alliance implies large investments in human capital, as well as new bridges among universities and between these and other institutions to develop research programs open to variety, creativity, and participation of cooperative networks of scholars and practitioners.

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The economics–engineering nexus: response to the commentaries

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Notes

Homo complexicus is conceived as constituted by homo economicus and homo sociologicus (e.g., homo moralis, homo eroticus, homo politicus, etc.). The construct corresponds to the “combination of all these homines”, albeit in “the absence of any rule of combination” (Schumpeter 1991, p. 337). The behavior of homo complexicus is the result of a mixture of rationality and nonrationality, according to which both self-interest, fairness, and generally the moral dimension do matter (Sjöstrand 1993).

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Acknowledgements

The paper benefited from insightful suggestions and comments by Paola Garrone, Luca Grilli, Riccardo Marzano, and Lucia Piscitello.