Juergen Foecking, who’s currently working at the Institutional Relations European Parliament Office in Spain, explains how technology is impacting economics.

Economics is a fast-paced field of study that constantly evolves alongside advances in technology and the behavioral sciences. The economists of tomorrow must be able to understand how economic motivations and social concerns interact with new transformative technologies in order to master the modern world’s progressively complex economy.

As part of IE University’s new Bachelor in Economics, students will learn about human behavior, economic environments, and global markets, enabling them to grasp the new reality of economics and how it affects the diverse world we live in. Our future-forward, innovative, and career-focused program equips students with the skills they need to drive economic transformation, business efficiency, and digital growth in a tech-driven era.

The Bachelor in Economics is a stimulating program that sets out to apply the fundamental principles that underpin economics into the context of our currently evolving digital and tech era.

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This program takes learning one step further than simply teaching traditional economics; our professors apply their knowledge of the current landscape of economics to the classrooms so that students are able to learn the key implications of technology within this sector. Largely left out of similar programs, the Bachelor in Economics includes the implications of automation, e-platforms, and the circular and sharing economy. Students also build upon their knowledge of the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, and big data—namely focusing on how these affect decision making and policies within a local and global environment.

Furthermore, at IE University, we understand the importance of understanding the economy from a global perspective as means to understanding the impact it may have on international relations, governments, and organizations. As such, our professors ensure you are able to drive economic transformation, growth, and efficiency on a global scale.

To mark the launch of our new program on October 3rd, IE University invited industry experts to share their views on the impact of modern economics on the world we live in.

Juergen Foecking is Head of Institutional Relations of the Office of the European Parliament in Spain, where he oversees the institutional relationships service. He has collaborated on drafting policy regarding state aid, and previously worked with competition and competitiveness issues.
Here, he discusses the merging of technology, human behavior, and economics, and outlines how this new combination is defining the economy of tomorrow.

“I think modern economics is changing a lot right now and that’s of course due to the data situation.

Economics is heading into many new areas in artificial intelligence and all the instruments we are going to have. It is heading much more into behavioral economics. We will know what people are buying, not buying, thinking, doing, and how they react to different stimuli.

The skills you need nowadays to succeed are thinking outside of the box and, of course, with all the mega data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence coming up, you need a good foundation in data science, financial analysis, and economic analysis.

I think the most important thing is to be able to interpret results, because many people will come with different models and different ‘truths’, and you need to be able to critically ask yourself whether this makes sense in the particular context. So you need to be able to actively apply all these instruments, but also passively to understand them.”

Juergen Foecking

Twenty-first century economics requires a much deeper understanding of the effect of new technologies on societies, governments, and businesses. Graduates must be able to understand and interpret the impact of artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning on the sector in order to critically analyze data and drive economic transformation in the future.