Should-Read: John Maynard Keynes (1941): Keynes on the Limits of Econometrics: To Koopmans

Should-Read: John Maynard Keynes (1941): Keynes on the Limits of Econometrics: To Koopmans: “Many thanks for sending me your article. I enjoyed it very much…

…I am sure these matters need discussing in that sort of way. There is one point, to which in practice I attach a great importance, you do not allude to. In many of these statistical researches, in order to get enough observations they have to be scattered over a lengthy period of time; and for a lengthy period of time it very seldom remains true that the environment is sufficiently stable. That is the dilemma of many of these enquiries, which they do not seem to me to face. Either they are dependent on too few observations, or they cannot rely on the stability of the environment. It is only rarely that this dilemma can be avoided.