The effectiveness of one aspect of the London School of Economics (LSE) approach to econometrics is assessed in a simulation study. The paper uses a data set and nine models analogous to those in Lovell's (1983) study of data mining. A simplified general-to-specific algorithm is tested in a...

Typically real-business-cycle models are assessed by their ability to mimic the covariances and variances of actual business cycle data. Recently, however, advocates of RBC models have used them to fit the historical path of real GDP using the Solow residual as a driving process. We demonstrate...

The 1970s and early 1980s witnessed two main approaches to the analysis of monetary policy. The first is the early new classical approach of Lucas, based on the assumptions of rational expectations and market clearing. The second is the a theoretical econometrics of Sims’s VAR program. Both...

Starting with a realist ontology the economic methodologist, Tony Lawson, argues that econometrics is a failed project. Apparently more sympathetic to econometrics, the philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, again from a realist perspective, nonetheless argues for conditions of applicability...

Causal relations between U.S. federal taxation and expenditure are analyzed using an approach based on the invariance of econometric relationships in the face of structural inverventions. Institutional evidence for interventions or changes of regime and econometric tests for structural breaks...