I had trouble parsing this, and it was only after I re-formatted it,
that I got the full impact. What a gasbag, what a bunch of hot air!
- was Ragnar Frisch, on this occasion.
=====================
On Mon, 18 Sep 2000 09:33:28 -0500, "Jim Eales"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> provided the following:
>From the first issue of Econometrica, Ragnar Frisch's definition of
econometrics:
Econometrics is by no means the same as economic statistics.
Nor is it identical with what we call general economic theory,
although a considerable portion of this theory has a definitely
quantitative character.
Nor should econometrics be taken as synonomous (sic) with the
application of mathematics to economics.
Experience has shown that each of these three view-points, that of
statistics,
economic theory, and
mathematics,
is a necessary, but not by itself sufficient, condition
for a real understanding of the quantitative relations in modern
economic life.
It is the unification of all three that is powerful.
And it is this unification that constitutes econometrics.
- Frisch, R. "Editorial." Econometrica 1(January, 1933) p. 2.
=======================
I notice the date. Curiously enough, 1933 is the year that Stephen
Stigler (Statistics on the Table, 1999) identifies with the "birth of
mathematical statistics as a discipline."
His chapter 8, "The history of Statistics in 1933," mentions several
journals but not that one. Chapter 8 also relates a long anecdote
about Hotelling's devastating reviews of a book by an economist named
Secrist. Secrist had written about "The Triumph of Mediocrity;" the
book apparently consisted of hundreds of pages of detailed, iterated
"proofs" wherein the author misinterpreted regression towards the mean
as an alarming economic phenomenon. -- Stigler indicates that various
things were happening around statistics in 1933, but I am not sure of
just what it is that he wants us to conclude.
By the way, much of the quantified base for economics did not exist
before WW II -- U.S. economists computed for the first time most of
such "indicators" as Consumer Price Index, or Gross National Product,
in an attempt to compare the assets of the sides.
Hope this was interesting.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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