Programmes for Human Decision-Making

Our subject belongs to what we could call the economic theory of organization and information or what is sometimes called the application of cybernetics in the economy. Roughly speaking, such studies deal with information structures and their function in economic systems, such systems being firms or even the economies of whole nations. In the study of these problems we are interested in the manner in which messages are received, treated, and transmitted in such systems, especially with regard to their efficiency. In doing so we can either study real systems with real people and ask questions why systems are as they are and why people behave as they do (descriptive approach), or we can try to design some projects as to what systems should be like and how they should work (normative approach). In the words of Jacob Marschak, we act either like students in comparative zoology or like engineers. No doubt the final aim of these studies is to act like engineers, which seems to be more useful and attractive. To design projects, however, necessitates a knowledge of reality, that is a knowledge of what we are going to make them from; this will probably force us to have some dealings with comparative zoology as well.