Before revision: Economics as a social science answers those questions and is defined as the knowledge used for selecting among “…technically feasible alternatives for the purpose of a rational allocation of scarce resources.” Correspondingly, all problems involving "... profit maximizing or cost-minimizing are engineering problems with economic objectives and are properly described by the label "engineering economy".Billy E. (1959) Engineering Economy—Teaching and Practice, The Engineering Economist, 5:2, 1-12, DOI: 10.1080/00137915908965083 Access at As a subdiscipline practiced by civil engineers, engineering economics narrows the definition of the fundamental economic problem and related questions to that of problems related to the investment of capital, public or private in a broad array of infrastructure projects.
After revision: Economics as a social science answers those questions and is defined as the knowledge used for selecting among “…technically feasible alternatives for the purpose of a rational allocation of scarce resources.” Correspondingly, all problems involving "... profit-maximizing or cost-minimizing are engineering problems with economic objectives and are properly described by the label "engineering economy".Billy E. (1959) Engineering Economy—Teaching and Practice, The Engineering Economist, 5:2, 1-12, DOI: 10.1080/00137915908965083 Access at As a subdiscipline practiced by civil engineers, engineering economics narrows the definition of the fundamental economic problem and related questions to that of problems related to the investment of capital, public or private in a broad array of infrastructure projects.