Mathematical models are instruments of investigation, epistemological equivalent to the microscope and the telescope. In comparing the epistemological difference between models and experiments, Morgan (2005) argues that experiments offer greater epistemic power than models as a means to...

Trygve Haavelmo's methodological manifesto "The Probability Approach in Econometrics" not only laid down the paradigm for the research pursued at the Cowles Commission, but also sets out a strategy for measurement outside the laboratory. His conceptualization of "passive observation" is still...

The controversy between Keynes and Tinbergen was about the applicability of regression analysis to economic material. According to Keynes, a necessary requirement was that the economic material is homogeneous, in time and place, and that therefore Tinbergen should test his material for this...

This survey is written to show historians of economics what is happening in history of econometrics, and is the second survey I did with this aim. The first survey, published in 2011, concluded that interest in the history of econometrics has arisen primarily from within econometrics itself and...

An important identifying assumption for business cycle models is contained in the mathematical form of the model, which determines the nature of its possible movements. Tinbergen's and Frisch's original understanding of business cycle theories was that of a closed model, containing only...

Understanding the history of econometrics as a modern science also asks for understanding of the development of the image of science, which includes the history of philosophy of science and the history of economic methodology. Beside that philosophers of science need to be historically informed,...

Mathematical molding disappeared in the changeover from methods to specify causal mechanisms of business cycles to methods to identify economic structures, that is, invariant relationships underlying the workings of an economy. Mathematical molding could fulfill its role in modeling business...