The Epistemology of Simulation, Computation, and Dynamics in Economics
In this chapter the spirit of William Petty is the driving force, but it is given new theoret- ical foundations, mainly as a result of developments in the mathematic underpinnings of the tremendous developments in the potentials of computing, especially using digital technology. Computation and simulation have always played a role in economics, whether it be pure economic theory or any variant of applied economics. This tradition can be traced to the vision of Petty, the founding father of political economy as political arithmetic. A running theme is that, increasingly, the development of economic theory seems to go hand in hand with advances in the theory and practice of computing, which is, in turn, a catalyst for the move away from overreliance on any kind of mathematics for the formalization of economic entities that is inconsistent with the mathematical, philosophical, and epistemological foundations of the digital computer.