Histories on Econometrics

This volume considers the history of econometrics, a field of economics that combines statistics, mathematics, and economic theory. Contributors scrutinize accounts of the field’s shifting boundaries and the development of a cohesive scholarly community of econometricians. These essays consider applied research and methodologies in context and connect the history of econometrics to contemporary developments in related disciplines and technologies. Analyzing the practice of econometrics around the world since its introduction in the 1920s, contributors examine the relationship between sociology and welfare in Italian econometrics, the extraordinary investment in macroeconometric models and input-output models in Japan, practices of econometrics in relation to computation and philosophy, and the recognition of unusual methodological stances in both theoretical and applied work. Reinterpreting the accepted history of econometrics allows historians to focus on new alliances, methods, and entrepreneurial models that resolve past obscurities and open up new areas for future inquiry.