by The point of the discussion, of course, has to do with where Koopmans thinks we should look for “autonomous behaviour relations”. He appeals to experience but in a somewhat oblique manner. He refers to the Harvard barometer “to show that relationships between economic variables … not traced to underlying behaviour equations are unreliable as instruments for prediction” … His argument would have been more effectively put had he been able to give instances of relationships that have been “traced to underlying behaviour equations” and that have been reliable instruments for prediction. He did not do this, and I know of no conclusive case that he could draw upon. There are of course cases of economic models that he could have mentioned as having been unreliable predictors. But
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The point of the discussion, of course, has to do with where Koopmans thinks we should look for “autonomous behaviour relations”. He appeals to experience but in a somewhat oblique manner. He refers to the Harvard barometer “to show that relationships between economic variables … not traced to underlying behaviour equations are unreliable as instruments for prediction” … His argument would have been more effectively put had he been able to give instances of relationships that have been “traced to underlying behaviour equations” and that have been reliable instruments for prediction. He did not do this, and I know of no conclusive case that he could draw upon. There are of course cases of economic models that he could have mentioned as having been unreliable predictors. But these latter instances demonstrate no more than the failure of Harvard barometer: all were presumably built upon relations that were more or less unstable in time.
The meaning conveyed, we may suppose, by the term “fundamental autonomous relation” is a relation stable in time and not drawn as an inference from combinations of other relations. The discovery of such relations suitable for the prediction procedure that Koopmans has in mind has yet to be publicly presented, and the phrase “underlying behaviour equation” is left utterly devoid of content.
Guess Robert Lucas didn’t read Vining …