Psychoeconomics?

From the Newsweek profile of Paul Krugman (hey, I didn't know it was pronounced "Kroogman"):

Krugman says he found himself in the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, especially the "Foundation" series--"It was nerds saving civilization, quants who had a theory of society, people writing equations on a blackboard, saying, 'See, unless you follow this formula, the empire will fail and be followed by a thousand years of barbarism'."