Methodologies of positive economics - The measurement-without-theory debate
8 important questions on Methodologies of positive economics - The measurement-without-theory debate
Between who was the measurement-without-theory debate?
What is the Cowles Commission?
1. A priori mathematical model
2. Estimated with equations
3. Hypothesis testing
What is the empirical statement of the NBER?
"Theory is the result of observation"
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What was the statement of Koopmans?
Koopmans believed that economists are unable to conduct experiments to an economic system as a whole (so it is hard to seperate causes from consequences) (simultaneous equation bias)
- There are so many emperical relations and these relations can only be identified if the set of variables involved in each equation is specified in economic theory.
- Invariance problem; does it hold in the future?
What critique did Vining (NBER) give to Koopmans?
Cowles Comission's model is too simple to capture the diversity which the data seems to explain.
What were the three arguments to explain the implicatoins and limitations of the NBER's empiricist position?
2. The NBER provides no evidene for the assumption that the empirical relationships found would be eternal over time.
3. Statistical analysis of the data require additional assumptions about their probabilistic characteristics that cannot be subject to statistical testing from the same data.
What was Cowles Comission's solution to the problem of incompleteness?
Solution: build ever more extensive models, which should include as many potential influences as possible.
What were the problems with econometrics?
2. One will need to use more variables to get more certainty and to have less chance of omitted variable bias, but this leads to a more complex model. (The NBER and Tinbergen)
3. Koopmans and Haavelmo: start with a small model based on theory and expand the model if necessary.
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