This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the first conference of the Society for Computational Economics held at ICC Institute, Austin, Texas, May 21-24, 1995. Twenty-two papers are included in this volume, devoted to applications of computational methods for the empirical analysis of economic and financial systems; the development of computing methodology, including software, related to economics and finance; and the overall impact of developments in computing. The various contributions represented in the volume indicate the growing interest in the topic due to the increased availability of computational concepts and tools and the necessity of analyzing complex decision problems. The papers in this volume are divided into four sections: Computational methods in econometrics, Computational methods in finance, Computational methods for a social environment and New computational methods.£/LIST£