Use of technology in the study of economics: The various types of digital tools frequently used in the study of economics are:
Computer technology:

• Computers and economics now go hand in hand.
• Computers are used to solve several purposes of economics. Some of them are discussed below.

1. In making presentations:

• Complicated economic information/data and difficult economic theories can be easily represented by making their PowerPoint presentations.
• For example, if one has to explain the budget briefly then he can simply make a 3 to 4 slides in Microsoft Power point, highlight the main topics, show important figures and charts and explain the entire budget.

2. Excel worksheets:

• Economics deals with lots of data. Researchers come across data having thousands of observations on a daily basis. It is almost impossible to handle so much data manually.
• Microsoft Excel is a powerful tool for handling large data related to several economic parameters and then and performing analysis on it.
• For example, if we survey on number of items produced by small scale industries in India, we would get thousands of observations.
• We can feed this data in excel and get various figures such as total production, average production, number of units in a given region, total exports, etc. within seconds.
• Excel also has numerous types of graphs and diagrams which can be created within a click.

3. Diagrams and graphs:

• There are several programmes in a computer which help us to draw diagrams and graphs used frequently in economics.
• Microsoft Word also offers drawing tools which can be used to draw simple free hand figures like a downward sloping or upward sloping demand or supply curve.
• It can also be used to draft a report, paste diagrams and graphs from Excel and publish the report.

4. Storage tools:

Economic study makes use of large amount of study and reference material. So, it is very important to have enough space where the material can be preserved for a long time.

• Having so much reference and data in the form of books is very cumbersome to carry, study and manage. Moreover, the material may be lost, get damaged by pest, moisture or other reasons.
• All such material can be conveniently stored, retrieved and transported easily if we use electronic media.
  The data and material can be stored computers, portable hard drives, pen drive, compact disc, etc.
  Nowadays the data can also be easily stored in digital format with the help of e-mail, drop-box, Google drive, Digi-locker, etc. we can access this material and read it in any part of the world.
• These media make it quite easy to transfer data, save it securely, preserve it for long time that too at multiple locations.
• Thus, study material can be preserved with the help of computer technology.

5. Other tools:

• Microsoft Excel cannot handle very large amount of data. For this purpose there are various statistical software available which are highly advanced, sophisticated and can handle any size of data.
• SPSS, SHAZAM, E-views, SAS, etc. are few of the such statistical software. -» These software can process data for lakhs of observations that too within seconds or minutes.
  Since these statistical software are very costly, they are mostly bought by research institutes or government organizations.
• There are also certain statistical software like Gretl, PSPP, R, etc. which are available free of cost on the internet but does almost same tasks of analysis as done by the costly software.
• Now-a-days many of these functions of a computer are also available on smart phones and tablets.