The aim of this volume is to provide an introduction and selective overview of the rapidly emerging field of computational economics. Computational economics provides an important set of tools that an increasing number of economists will need to acquire in order to understand and do state-of-the-art research in virtually all areas of economics. Articles in the volume range from very applied, policy oriented applications of computational methods, to highly theoretical and mathematically complex analyses of algorithms and numerical methods. The book emphasizes the unique contributions of computational methods in economics, and focuses on problems for which well developed solutions are not already available from the literature in operations research, numerical methods, and computer science. As well as covering relatively mature areas in the field, a number of chapters are included which cover more speculative "frontier topics," in particular recently discovered computational innovations and research results. For more information on the Handbooks in Economics series, please see our homepage on http: //www.elsevier.nl/locate/hes