{"id":1241,"date":"2024-06-28T15:55:46","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T15:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/?p=1241"},"modified":"2024-06-28T15:55:46","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T15:55:46","slug":"how-it-all-began-ragnar-frisch-and-the-founding-of-the-econometric-society-2-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/?p=1241","title":{"rendered":"How it all began: Ragnar Frisch and the founding of the Econometric Society (2\/3)"},"content":{"rendered":"
 <\/div>\n
\"\"
Total amount of members of the Econometric Society made by Divisia in 1952. We can observe the original domination of european economist, and the change after WW2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

This post is the second of a three-parts serie on the founding of the econometric society. All comments are welcomed.<\/p>\n

Ragnar Frisch, with Charles Roos and Irving Fisher, decided to hit hard. In June 1930, they sent out a 5-pages letter to 31 economists from twelve countries, mostly European and American, known as the “June letter” with the intent to go after the big fish. The letter had a dual purpose: 1) to ask for “opinion” and “encouragement”, and 2), to seek for a possibility to broaden the base (Bjerkholt, 2017: 183). The choice was thus to take a horizontal approach, to take the temperature before moving forward. This letter tells us a lot about the context at a time Economics was not yet mathematical.<\/p>\n

The recipients of the June letter<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Among the 31 recipients, one third were American: Fisher, Roos, T. N. Carver, John B. Clark, his son John M. Clark, Griffith C. Evans, Mordecai Ezekiel, Henry L. Moore, Warren M. Persons, and Henry Schultz, two-thirds were European reflecting the economic spectrum (Bjerkholt, 2017, 178).<\/p>\n

Italian weigh particurlarly heavely with economists like Luigi Amoroso, Corrado Gini, Umberto Ricci, Alfonso de Pietri-Tonelli and Gustavo del Vecchio. Except Gini (famous for his index), most of them are now forgotten but as Schumpeter observed, “independently of Pareto, Italian economics attained a high level in a variety of lines and in all applied fields\u201d. (Schumpeter, 1954 : 855 quoted in Bjerkholt, 2017: 180).<\/p>\n

Four French economists were included: Jacques Moret, Cl\u00e9ment Colson (a leading name at Ecole Polytechnique in France) and his disciples Fran\u00e7ois Divisia and Jacques Rueff. Contrary to the picture, mathematical economics was only taught to a handful of engineers mostly at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaus\u00e9es where was kept alive the tradition of Cournot and Walras (Bjerkholt, 2017: 180). <\/p>\n

Only three English economists were selected but the big one were there : Arthur Bowley from Oxford and the two famous economists from Cambridge A. C. Pigou and John M. Keynes.<\/p>\n

Two swedish economists were on the list: Gustav Cassel and Bertil Ohlin, a disciple of Knut Wicksell. At that time Sweden looms large in economics and especially on monetary and macroeconomic issues (Bjerkholt, 2014: 7). Surprisingly, very few from the Vienna Circle (which comprised talented economists and mathematicians) were contacted: only Hans Mayer from Vienna is on the list and Joseph Schumpeter (professor at Bonn at that time) (Bjerkholt, 2014: 7). Finally, the letter was adressed to the Danish statistician Harald Westergaard, the Polish Wlasdislaw Zawasdki, and the Russian Eugen Slutsky.<\/p>\n

This diverse group had connections to pioneers like Leon Walras, Alfred Marshall, Pareto, Wicksell and others. This list thus reflects a genuine attempt to bring together all the national economic traditions (France, United States, England, Sweden, Italy…) and to encompass various ways to adress formally economic issues. (Bjerkholt, 2014: 10). It also shows that many young economists (aged less than 40) like Frisch (36), Ross (29), Ezekiel (31), Ohlin (32) and Rueff (35) were included among great figures like John Bates Clarck (84) and Cl\u00e9ment Colson (78) without mentionning Keynes or Schumpeter.<\/p>\n

A table summarizing the thirty-one economists:<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Name<\/th>\nPicture<\/th>\nUniversity<\/th>\nCountry<\/th>\nDescription<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Hans Mayer (1879-1955)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Vienna<\/td>\nAustria<\/td>\nAustrian economist, known for his work in the Austrian School of economics and price theory.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Harald Westergaard (1853-1936)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Copenhagen<\/td>\nDenmark<\/td>\nDanish statistician and economist, known for his work on demographic statistics and life tables.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
John M. Keynes (1883-1946)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Cambridge<\/td>\nEngland<\/td>\nBritish economist, founder of Keynesian economics, known for his work on macroeconomic theory and policy.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Arthur Cecil Pigou (1877-1959)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Cambridge<\/td>\nEngland<\/td>\nBritish economist, known for his work on welfare economics and externalities.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
A. L. Bowley (1869-1957)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nLondon School of Economics<\/td>\nEngland<\/td>\nEnglish statistician and economist, contributed to the development of statistical methods in economics.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jacques Rueff (1896-1978)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nInstitut de Statistique, Universit\u00e9 de Paris<\/td>\nFrance<\/td>\nFrench economist, known for his work on monetary policy and international finance.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cl\u00e9ment Colson (1853-1939)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\n\u00c9cole Nationale des Ponts et Chauss\u00e9es, Paris<\/td>\nFrance<\/td>\nFrench engineer and economist, known for his work on public finance and transportation economics.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fran\u00e7ois Divisia (1889-1964)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\n\u00c9cole Nationale des Ponts et Chauss\u00e9es, Paris<\/td>\nFrance<\/td>\nFrench economist, known for the Divisia index used in economic measurement.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jacques Moret <\/td>\n <\/td>\n \u00c9cole Nationale des Ponts et Chauss\u00e9es, Paris<\/td>\nFrance<\/td>\nFrench economist and statistician, lesser-known but contributed to economic thought in France.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Bonn<\/td>\nAustria<\/td>\nAustrian economist, known for his work on economic development and the concept of creative destruction.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
L. v. Bortkiewicz (1868-1931)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Berlin<\/td>\nGermany<\/td>\nGerman statistician and economist, friend of Walras, known for his work on the law of large numbers and the Poisson distribution.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Alfonso de Pietri-Tonelli (1871-1960)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Venice<\/td>\nItaly<\/td>\nItalian economist and statistician, contributed to the field of mathematical economics.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Luigi Amoroso (1886-1965)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Rome<\/td>\nItaly<\/td>\nItalian economist, follower of Pareto, known for his work in mathematical economics.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Corrado Gini (1884-1965)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Rome<\/td>\nItaly<\/td>\nItalian statistician and sociologist, known for the Gini coefficient measuring income inequality.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Umberto Ricci (1879-1946)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Rome<\/td>\nItaly<\/td>\nItalian economist, known for his work on economic policy and theory.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gustavo del Vecchio (1883-1972)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nR. Universit\u00e0 Commerciale, Trieste<\/td>\nItaly<\/td>\nItalian economist, known for his work on monetary theory and policy.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ragnar Frisch (1895-1973)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nOslo University (pro tem Yale University)<\/td>\nNorway<\/td>\nNorwegian economist, Nobel laureate, known for his work on econometrics and macroeconomic modeling.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gustav Cassel (1866-1945)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nStockholms H\u00f6gskola<\/td>\nSweden<\/td>\nSwedish mathematician and economist, known for his theory on general equilibrium and contributions to macroeconomics.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bertil Ohlin (1899-1979)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nHandelsh\u00f6gskolan, Stockholm<\/td>\nSweden<\/td>\nSwedish economist, Nobel laureate, known for the Heckscher-Ohlin model in international trade theory.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Irving Fisher (1867-1947)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nYale University, New Haven, Conn.<\/td>\nU.S.A.<\/td>\nAmerican economist, known for his work on interest rates, the quantity theory of money, and index numbers.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Griffith Conrad Evans (1887-1973)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nRice Institute, Houston, Texas<\/td>\nU.S.A.<\/td>\nAmerican mathematician and economist, known for his work in functional analysis and economics.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
T. N. Carver (1865-1961)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nHarvard University, Cambridge<\/td>\n U.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican economist, known for his work on agricultural economics and social reform.<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Charles Frederick Roos (1901-1958)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nCornell University, Ithaca, New York<\/td>\nU.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican mathematician and economist, known for his work on economic modeling and operations research.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
J. M. Clark (1884-1963)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nColumbia University, New York City<\/td>\nU.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican economist, known for his work on the economics of overhead costs and business cycle theory.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Henry Ludwell Moore (1869-1958)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nColumbia University, New York City<\/td>\nU.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican economist, pioneer in the use of statistical methods in economic research.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Henry Schultz (1893-1938)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nChicago University, Chicago, Illinois<\/td>\nU.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican economist, known for his work on econometrics and statistical demand analysis.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mordecai Ezekiel (1899-1974)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\n\n

University of Minnesota, Minnesota<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

U.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican economist, known for his work on agricultural economics and economic forecasting.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
John Bates Clark (1847-1938)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nCarleton College, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University<\/td>\nU.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican neoclassical economist, founder of the marginalist revolution in the USA, opponent of the institutionalists.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Warren M. Persons (1878-1937)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nUniversity of Wisconsin, Wisconsin<\/td>\nU.S.A<\/td>\nAmerican economist, known for his work on economic cycles and forecasting.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eugen Slutsky (1880-1948)<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\nInstitut fur Konjunkturforschung, Moscow<\/td>\nU.S.S.R<\/td>\nRussian economist and statistician, known for his work on probability theory and consumer choice<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The content of the June letter <\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

The letter, signed by Fisher, Frisch and Roos required 4 conditions for membership which would not appal a Master’s student today:<\/p>\n

a) To be familiar “with general economic theory” b) to have “a working knowledge of mathematics as applied to economic theory and statistics”, c) to have “some knowledge of accounting”, and d) to have “published an original contribution to economic theory or to the analysis of such economic statistics or accounting as have a definite bearing on problems in economic theory” (June letter, 1930, quoted in Bjerkhohlt, 2017: 182).<\/p>\n

The b) condition was heavely discussed. Divisions emerged between supporters of Frisch’s view of a mathematically based economic science and American institutionalits like Maurice Clark or statisticians like Persons (Bjerkholt, 2017: 183). Even among this selection of economists, the question of the mathematization of economics proved to be not settled (Bjerkholt, 2014: 16).<\/p>\n

If the association was not yet known as the “Econometric Society”, the letter suggests to name the journal of the society Oekonommetrika.<\/em> Divisia prefered that term to “Economic Science” which seemed to him “dangerous” because it “indicate that we want to monopolize economic science and that we are the only ones who represent the true economic science.” (Bjerkholt, 2017: 187).<\/p>\n

The June letter was a success. All the economists replied except Pigou and Cassel. Some refused to join the society for health reasons: Moore (known for extending Jevons’ sun spot theory) and the statistician and demograph Westergaard. Though, most of them welcomed the initiative and took part to its development (Bjerkholt, 2017: 183) until the effective founding of the Econometric Society in Cleveland in December 1930.<\/p>\n

We’ll see in the next post the challenges faced by the society during the first years of its existence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References <\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n

Bjerkholt, Olav. Econometric sociey 1930: How it got founded<\/i>. No. 26\/2014. Memorandum, 2014.<\/p>\n

Bjerkholt, Olav. “On the founding of the Econometric Society.” _Journal of the History of Economic Thought_ 39.2 (2017): 175-198.<\/p>\n

Divisia, Fran\u00e7ois. “La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d’Econom\u00e9trie a atteint sa majorit\u00e9.” Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society<\/i> (1953): 1-30.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Christ, Carl F. “The founding of the Econometric Society and Econometrica.” _Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society_ (1983): 3-6.<\/p>\n

Lou\u00e7\u00e3, Francisco. _The years of high econometrics: A short history of the generation that reinvented economics_. Routledge, 1998.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This post is the second of a three-parts serie on the founding of the econometric society. All comments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1306,"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/1306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.economic-instability.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}