This book traces the formation of econometric theory during the period 1930–1960. It focuses upon the process of how econometrics was formed from mathematical and scientific processes in order to analyse economic problems. The book deals with the advances that were achieved as well as the problems that arose in the course of the practice of econometrics as a discipline. Duo Qin examines the history of econometrics in terms of the basic issues in econometric modelling: the probability foundations, estimation, identification, testing, and model construction and specification. The book describes ... More

This book traces the formation of econometric theory during the period 1930–1960. It focuses upon the process of how econometrics was formed from mathematical and scientific processes in order to analyse economic problems. The book deals with the advances that were achieved as well as the problems that arose in the course of the practice of econometrics as a discipline. Duo Qin examines the history of econometrics in terms of the basic issues in econometric modelling: the probability foundations, estimation, identification, testing, and model construction and specification. The book describes chronologically how these issues were formalized. Duo Qin argues that, while the probability revolution in econometrics in the early 1940s laid the basis for the systematization of econometric theory, it was actually an incomplete revolution, and its incompleteness underlay various problems and failures that occurred in applying the newly established theory to modelling practice. Model construction and hypothesis testing remained problematic because the basic problem of induction in econometrics was not properly formalized and solved. The book thus links early econometric history with many issues of interest to contemporary developments in econometrics. The story is told from the econometric perspective instead of the usual perspective in the history of economic thought (i.e. presenting the story either according to different schools or economic issues), and this approach is clearly reflected in the classification of the chapters.