Let's think about the economy as this science that provides prescriptions based on models that we often find far from reality. We will see how the economy can contribute and at the same time strengthen itself in this new era in which data acquire a central role in various fields.
The question of the data has always been relevant; both as a mechanism to evaluate theories, and to do so in making economic decisions.
Since the beginning of the 20th century with the advances in statistical methods, added to the availability of data sources; the economy was seeking to validate its theoretical formulations and give them an empirical anchorage, using econometrics as a spearhead.
At the business and decision-making level, the incorporation of the data occurred from what is known as business intelligenceor business intelligence. This is the implementation of information systems that use organizational data, such as the environment, which can be relevant to decision making; it is necessary to clarify that here we are talking about traditional data.
The rapid advancement of technology in data processing and storage capacity from the 20th century, added to the widespread use of the internet, and its adoption on devices in what is the internet of things; it gave way to what since the 1990s is known as big date. The latter consists, in a summarized way, in large volumes of data, that by its characteristics we cannot process under traditional methods.
The availability of technologies associated with big data has repercussions on major transformations, such as the incorporation of sensors into phases of productive processes, or to detect abnormal characteristics in the behavior of supply chains. At the theoretical level, data availability allows advancements in approaches such as complex systems in economics, and also the possibility of incorporating non-traditional data has expanded the horizon of analysis.
Promises and challenges
The economy is having virtuous feedback under the new paradigms of the data revolution. Data incorporation, such as non-traditional data: that allows modelling that can robuste financial prognostics, or the various applications in business intelligence.
On the other hand, the economy has dealt with themes of industrial organization and market design; they can give perspectives to the challenges that data governance poses, and how data are used or transacted.
The economy is incorporating the new techniques and methods that work with data that allow greater anchorage with the economic and social phenomena that it studies. However, the latter are still subject to uncertainty as free will; or to disruptive phenomena globally. And the use of sophisticated methods for making economic decisions such as automatic learning that work as black boxes, seem to indicate that the economy may continue with a mystery aura in its methods.
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