The development of the economic sciences: two contemporary tendencies

Abstract

Each scientific discipline has its own characteristics: the way it has developed, the connections with the other disciplines, the prevailing methodology, and the way the research is conducted. This is also true for the economic sciences. This paper discusses two important trends shaping research in the economic sciences over the last two decades. The first one is the growing interdisciplinarity of economic research. The second one is the impact of technological changes on research in the economic sciences. The paper presents the author’s systematization of these problems. Section 2 provides a presentation of the economic sciences, understood as a discipline within the overall classification of scientific disciplines – with a particular emphasis on Polish regulations. Some other classifications of scientific disciplines are discussed in Section 3. The development of the economic sciences over the last few decades is discussed in Section 4. The first contemporary trend – growing interdisciplinarity in economic research – is presented in Section 5. A presentation of some technological innovations is provided in Section 6. The second contemporary trend – the impact of technological changes on research in the economic sciences – is presented in Section 7.