Information
Technology and Economics for Sustainable Development
Jon D. Erickson and John M. Gowdy
Department of Economics
Rationale
This proposal marks a giant step forward in bringing information technology (IT) fully into the Economics Department's curriculum and research program. We propose an investment in an IT-Economics computer laboratory, infrastructure for large enrollment laptop economics courses, development of laboratory and teaching materials for incorporating geographical information systems (GIS) analysis, and an IT-intensive course in regional economics. This investment will merge four areas of strategic promise: the IT-Economics undergraduate degree, the economics of technology and structural change, regional economic development, and GIS economic and demographic analysis. The upgrade of our existing computer laboratory will include GIS and regional economic databases, and connectivity to any campus laptop class through a central server. We modestly anticipate attracting 5 to 15 new IT-Economic students per year over the next four years. Return on investment is in the range of 55-65% per year. Creating laptop connectivity to our department archives of data and software, together with the development of GIS lab material, will benefit many of the courses in the campus-wide IT curriculum. This investment will also contribute to a major department grant-writing campaign in the area of "Regional Economic Information Systems for Sustainable Development" and increase the visibility of our undergraduate and graduate program through community ecological-economic development projects.
Information
Technology and Economics in the Classroom
The widespread availability of techniques such as GIS mapping and regional input-output analysis is beginning to revolutionize economic analysis. This information revolution has the potential to revitalize economic analysis and our basic understandings of how the economic system works. As the information revolution penetrates the classroom, courses will increasingly be taught around local, national, and regional databases. For instance, in our proposed IT-intensive regional economics course students will not only have the opportunity to learn to manipulate existing databases, they will also learn to collect, analyze, and systematically organize local economic data.
A particularly innovative focus of
our department is structural economics, a descriptive system based on
input-output analysis which gives a concise view of economic activity and the
interconnections between economic sectors, household characteristics and the
surrounding environmental/natural resource base.
To integrate information
technology, GIS coursework, and the
The Economics
Department Computer Laboratory
The economics computer laboratory was originally created with the assistance of a strategic investment grant for our graduate program in ecological economics. The return on this investment has been high. The program has grown to a world-renowned graduate program, attracting diverse students and scholars from around the world. Last year’s class totaled 15 full-time and 12 part-time students, with over $170,000 of outside funding support.
The computer lab has also played a growing role in our undergraduate program. We are building the capacity for a world-class IT and Economics degree, and are finding the current laboratory to be limiting. We’ve been able to use outside funding and corporate donations to acquire significant software and data needs. For instance, the Economics department has been an active participant in structuring a partnership and software donation with MapInfo, Inc. MapInfo donated the most recent GIS software to the Economics department this past semester, and we’re now discussing the development of an extensive database of regional GIS files. We now need a strategic investment to update the lab’s hardware components to service computer-intensive coursework, graduate research, and undergraduate projects.
In addition, the department is
positioning itself to fully participate in
The Regional Economics
Course and Structural Economics
This Fall
1999 course will combine the economic theory of regional economies with
analyses of local communities. Students
will work closely with local communities in developing a semester-long research
project using regional economic modeling and geographical information
systems. Students currently in our Ph.D.
program are working on community development projects in the
Key to this class is a
revolutionary way to look at how economies work–structural economics. Structural economics is an extension of
input-output (IO) analysis, a powerful analytical tool that shows the flows
among different sectors of an economy. An
IO table is a matrix of economic information which shows where the outputs of each economic sector goes and where the inputs to
each sector come from. An extension of
this model provides a framework for examining the direct and indirect impacts
of changes in what is produced and how it is produced, on income and
consumption. For example, this approach
may be used to estimate the effects on each sector's resource consumption of
changes in tax policy, the effects of a policy favoring certain types of new
industries, or how changes in lifestyles are reflected in changing patterns of
work and consumption. Using
input-output, natural resource accounts, and geographical information data, one
can examine the economic, socio-economic, and environmental impacts of
alternative production and consumption patterns on a particular geographic
area.
Laptop Introductory
Economics Class
Initially,
one to two sections of the Spring 2000 course in
Introductory Economics will be developed as a laptop class for freshman. Introductory economics at
GIS Lab Materials for
IT Curriculum
The economics department has been involved in university negotiations with MapInfo, Inc., regarding GIS software and data support from its earliest stages. One faculty member (Erickson) and two graduate teaching assistants have attending MapInfo training sessions to date. Erickson has used MapInfo in laboratories of his Quantitative Analysis class, and both undergraduate and graduate students are incorporating GIS into research projects. The next step is to develop self-standing MapInfo computer labs to introduce students to GIS in large enrollment classes within the economics and IT departments. Department courses in Ecological Economics, Environmental Economics, Natural Resource Economics, Regional Economics, and Quantitative Analysis will benefit by adding spatial (GIS) and information transfer dimensions to models of resource use, externalities, and land-use planning. An introduction to IT and global citizenry will also be added as a component to the current cross-department freshman studies course on Ecology, Ethics, and Economics (taught by Gowdy). These GIS new labs will also benefit core IT classes such as Politics and Economics of IT, The IT Revolution, and Managing IT Resources. Students pursuing the IT and Economics degree will also have the opportunity to develop GIS-intensive projects in their Senior IT-Economics Capstone.
We believe that this new type of
economic analysis and teaching fits with
Budget Justification