As computing technologies have become more and more sophisticated, economists have come to rely increasingly heavily on computers for a variety of tasks. Today, economists use computers to analyze large quantities of statistical information, to create simulations or scenarios of what might happen to an economy if a particular economic variable, such as the price of oil, changes, and to solve complex mathematical problems that advance our knowledge of economic processes.

Perhaps the most common use of computers in economics is for the analysis of statistical information. Economists call this type of analysis "econometrics." Using the large amounts of statistical economic information that are now easily available on the Internet and elsewhere, economists can test simple but important questions about economic behavior. For example, based on data for the past two decades for the fifty states in the United States, what can one say...