IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nea/journl/y2020i47p158-177.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The constructivist project 'Econometrics-1930': Implementation of the impossible or realization of inevitable?

Author

Listed:
  • Belyanova, E.

    (Ye.M. Primakov Institute of Word Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia)

  • Makasheva, N.

    (National Research University "Higher School of Economics", Moscow, Russia)

Abstract

The article studies the project of the founding of the Econometric society and its implementation in 1930's in the context of the development of economic and statistical thought in the first third of the 20th century and its relation to the Keynesian revolution which began at that time. According to the idea of the Society's founding fathers it ought to become a driving force in the process of the purposeful reconstruction of economic science in the most promising direction, that meant, from their viewpoint, its advancement towards mathematization and quantification, and implementation of the verification principle in economic theory. Realization of that goal implied joint efforts of representatives of the relevant disciplines from different countries. This unique project embodied views of a relatively small group of scientists on scientific knowledge not shared by the majority of economists of the time. On the other hand it reflected objective trends that had developed in economic science by mid-1920s, therefore the founding of the Econometric Society as well as activities of its members significantly influenced the trajectory of the development of economic science in the post-war period.

Suggested Citation

  • Belyanova, E. & Makasheva, N., 2020. "The constructivist project 'Econometrics-1930': Implementation of the impossible or realization of inevitable?," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 158-177.
    • Handle: RePEc:nea:journl:y:2020:i:47:p:158-177
    DOI: 10.31737/2221-2264-2020-47-3-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econorus.org/repec/journl/2020-47-158-177r.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31737/2221-2264-2020-47-3-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Ise, 1932. "Recent Textbooks on Economics and their Trend," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 46(2), pages 385-397.
    2. Frisch, Ragnar, 1992. "Statics and dynamics in economic theory," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 391-401, December.
    3. repec:hal:journl:dumas-00906285 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Bjerkholt, Olav & Qin, Duo, 2010. "Teaching Economics as a Science: the 1930 Yale Lectures of Ragnar Frisch," Memorandum 05/2010, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    5. Robert J. Gordon, 1997. "What is the Econometric Society? History, Organization, and Basic Procedures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(6), pages 1443-1452, November.
    6. J. M. Keynes., 2007. "Professor Tinbergen’s Method," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 4.
    7. Hendry,David F. & Morgan,Mary S., 1997. "The Foundations of Econometric Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521588706, Enero-Abr.
    8. Bjerkholt, Olav, 2017. "On The Founding Of The Econometric Society," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 175-198, June.
    9. Vladimir Avtonomov & Natalia Makasheva, 2018. "The Austrian school of economics in Russia: From criticism and rejection to absorption and adoption," Russian Journal of Economics, ARPHA Platform, vol. 4(1), pages 31-43, April.
    10. Moore, Henry Ludwell, 1914. "Economics Cycles: Their law and cause," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number moore1914.
    11. Henry L. Moore, 1908. "The Statistical Complement of Pure Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 23(1), pages 1-33.
    12. Tinbergen, Jan, 1974. "Ragnar Frisch's role in econometrics : A sketch," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 3-6, June.
    13. Olav Bjerkholt & Ariane Dupont, 2010. "Ragnar Frisch's Conception of Econometrics," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 21-73, Spring.
    14. Tobin, James, 1985. "Neoclassical Theory in America: J. B. Clark and Fisher," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(6), pages 28-38, December.
    15. Marcel Boumans & Ariane Dupont-Kieffer, 2011. "A History of the Histories of Econometrics," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 43(5), pages 5-31, Supplemen.
    16. W. L. Crum, 1925. "Recent Books on Mathematical and Statistical Method," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 39(2), pages 313-319.
    17. Qin, Duo, 2013. "A History of Econometrics: The Reformation from the 1970s," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199679348, Decembrie.
    18. Bjerkholt, Olav, 2014. "Promoting Econometrics through econometrica 1933-39," Memorandum 28/2013, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    19. Christ, Carl F, 1983. "The Founding of the Econometric Society and Econometrica," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(1), pages 3-6, January.
    20. Bjerkholt, Olav & Qin, Duo, 2010. "Teaching Economics as a Science: the 1930 Yale Lectures of Ragnar Frisch," Memorandum 05/2010, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    21. Patinkin, Don, 1976. "Keynes and Econometrics: On the Interaction between the Macroeconomic Revolutions of the Interwar Period," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(6), pages 1091-1123, November.
    22. Philip Mirowski, 1991. "The When, the How and the Why of Mathematical Expression in the History of Economic Analysis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 145-157, Winter.
    23. Olav Bjerkholt, 2015. "How it all began: the first Econometric Society meeting, Lausanne, September 1931," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(6), pages 1149-1178, December.
    24. Marcel Boumans, 2016. "Econometrics," Chapters, in: Gilbert Faccarello & Heinz D. Kurz (ed.), Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis Volume III, chapter 9, pages 106-116, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mustafin, A., 2022. "Long cycles, the soviet authority and economists: From the history of discussions of the 1920s," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 57(5), pages 126-140.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. M.J. Boumans, 2018. "Survey on Recent Work in the History of Econometrics: A Witness Report," Working Papers 18-10, Utrecht School of Economics.
    2. Marcel Boumans & Ariane Dupont-Kieffer, 2011. "A History of the Histories of Econometrics," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 43(5), pages 5-31, Supplemen.
    3. Robert W. Dimand, 2020. "Macroeconomic dynamics at the Cowles Commission from the 1930s to the 1950s," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 564-581, July.
    4. n.d., 2015. "Glimpses of Henry Schultz in Mussolini?s 1934 Italy," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(2), pages 93-113.
    5. Carret, Vincent, 2021. "Fluctuations and growth in Ragnar Frisch’s rocking horse model," OSF Preprints 69nsg, Center for Open Science.
    6. Duo Qin, 2014. "Inextricability of Autonomy and Confluence in Econometrics," Working Papers 189, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    7. David F. Hendry, 2020. "A Short History of Macro-econometric Modelling," Economics Papers 2020-W01, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    8. James H. Stock & Francesco Trebbi, 2003. "Retrospectives: Who Invented Instrumental Variable Regression?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 177-194, Summer.
    9. Olav Bjerkholt & Duo Qin, 2010. "Teaching Economics As a Science: The 1930 Yale Lectures of Ragnar Frisch," Working Papers 665, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    10. Christopher L. Gilbert & Duo Qin, 2007. "Representation in Econometrics: A Historical Perspective," Working Papers 583, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    11. Fiorito, Luca, 2022. "The “Social Value” Debate: An Early Chapter in the History of American Marginalism," OSF Preprints kznuj, Center for Open Science.
    12. Turner, Paul & Wood, Justine, 2020. "New Perspectives On Henry Ludwell Moore’S Use Of Harmonic Analysis," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(4), pages 507-520, December.
    13. Muhammad Ali Nasir & Jamie Morgan, 2025. "The methodological problem of unit roots: stationarity and its consequences in the context of the Tinbergen debate," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 347(1), pages 113-130, April.
    14. David F. Hendry, 2024. "A Brief History of General‐to‐specific Modelling," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(1), pages 1-20, February.
    15. Garrone Giovanna & Marchionatti Roberto, 2007. "Keynes, statistics and econometrics," CESMEP Working Papers 200703, University of Turin.
    16. Stavros A. DRAKOPOULOS, 2016. "Economic crisis, economic methodology and the scientific ideal of physics," The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 28-57, November.
    17. Garrone Giovanna & Marchionatti Roberto, 2007. "The appropriate style of economic discourse. Keynes on Economics and Econometrics," CESMEP Working Papers 200702, University of Turin.
    18. Roger E. Backhouse & Bradley W. Bateman & Steven G. Medema, 2010. "The Reception of Marshall in the United States," Chapters, in: Tiziano Raffaelli & Giacomo Becattini & Katia Caldari & Marco Dardi (ed.), The Impact of Alfred Marshall’s Ideas, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Duo Qin, 2022. "Redirect the Probability Approach in Econometrics Towards PAC Learning," Working Papers 249, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    20. Vincent Carret, 2021. "Rupture and continuity in the original divide between micro-dynamics and macro-dynamics," Working Papers halshs-03242180, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    econometric society; econometrics; marginalist revolution; Keynesian revolution; R. Frisch; I. Fisher;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • B23 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Econometrics; Quantitative and Mathematical Studies
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nea:journl:y:2020:i:47:p:158-177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alexey Tcharykov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nearuea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.