Econometrics in Theory and Practice

The purpose of this paper is to explore the answers to several questions raised by the fact that econometrics in theory is not the same as econometrics in practice. An obvious question is why econometrics in theory differs from econometrics in practice. The simple answer is that the benefits from data mining are great. Another question raised by the difference between econometrics in theory and econometrics in practice is how to reconcile the two. The hope is to make the data miner behave more like a classical statistician.