Fundamentally, they both live on the big three - heat, wave and Laplace equations. They both carry that trilogy of toolbox in an attempt to approximate the real world for practical benefits, which real world is a complex dynamical system. The pursuit of engineers allows better approximation. Consequently, engineers may seem more authentic. However, the two are cousins. Here is the tragedy, the two hardly talk. The world would be a better place if they talked more often.
As a matter of fact, many classical economists and early management thinkers were originally trained as engineers: Vilfredo Pareto, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Léon Walras, and Henri Fayol are a few that come to mind (in no particular order). Some regret ever-increasing specialization and the splitting of science into innumerable disciplines and subdisciplines.
Thank you Fred, interesting question and crucial issue to discuss.
Olivier statement is brilliant, when engineers think as managers great management schools have been developed and best management books have been written. When I was a BA and MBA student, best of the best lecturers who really affect me and direct my research interest and add me valuable contributions have engineering backgrounds.
When engineers and managers become one management becomes practical, realistic and fruitful.
Dear Saleh
Engineering is exact science while Economics is not
However both work together because in many many cases engineers work to solve economic problems and needs
In my case, I work very closely with economists
As a matter of fact I don't think that one discipline will work well without the other
@nolberto, engineering is not an exact science. Only exact science is exact and even so... Mathematics is exact until the whole corpus of mathematics hits a contradiction, and this might make it collapse (see logic, Goedel and similar). Newtonian mechanics is an approximation, which might need more complete frameworks like quantum mechanics or relativity (restrained or generalised) depending on problems to address, and which precision is required.
This leads me to the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg, hence in that context the mere notion of an exact science disappears.
Engineers never build perfect bridges, perfect space shuttles. They make assumptions, approximations, and issues appear when the system leaves the assumed operation domain...
In that sense, engineers and economists share imperfect actions with imperfect knowledge.
What makes economists look worse is that they operate without the safety net which engineers have: engineers rely on stable models for physics, chemistry, biology. What can economists rely on? Human behavior models (increasingly important, see behavioral economics since Kahneman & Tversky, with recent Nobel Prize granted to Richard Thaler, from this field)?
Assumptions on system dynamics, as demand/supply, employment/unemployment and consumption, etc?
Statistical data and models?
Economics starts with observations of agents behaving in markets and societies. Then economic policies make the bold step to try and orient trends, like employment, consumption, commerce, etc, by regulating a variable to act on other parameters. This is where risks of failure appear.
In the explanatory/modeling role, a fair amount of knowledge can be structured for past events. When acting on the future, that's not always working.
For engineers, systems and their range of operation are better defined, one could say "smaller", and therefore the future is easier to influence and sometimes control (if I turn the wheel to go right, the car is very likely to go right... In economics there is no wheel or brake as such...).
Dear Renaud
You are absolutely right. My mistake, and I thank you for the correction; engineering is not an exact science, but relies on it to solve problems and create solutions.
Regarding Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle I also agree with you regarding precise measurement, which implies that exact science does no exists. We still don't know which the limit in the decomposition of the atom is, or the limit of the universe, if there is a limit. In my opinion, these are dimensional problems that we are far from solve.
For engineers there are many models but also the possibility to build physical models and test them simulating real conditions.
Economists have developed math models such as the Cobb-Douglas that try to represent reality. The problem is that there are residuals that we don't know how to compute them, and something similar happens with the GDP.
Dear colleagues,
Yes, it's an important question. Indeed, the optimization, modeling and simulation of processes are related to economic data and theories. So, Process engineers must have a strong knowledge in economics sciences to be performant in their job.
Thank you all for the responses. This morning I was attending to ‘inclusive growth’. That is the policy zeitgeist (song of the day). Ponder, inclusion means diffusion in some form. Yet, hardly any papers draw on the rich tools of Fourier transform and the heat equation in addressing inclusive growth. We look much deeper into inclusive growth when we use the lenses of the heat equation. So, why are we deprived? Scholarship is flawed. Economics must talk with engineering more often.
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