Since identification, instrumental variables and variables exclusion, core concepts in econometrics, are entwined, several questions arise: How is identification related to the existence of IVs? How are identification criteria related to omitted variables? Is omission/inclusion of variables from...

Since identification, instrumental variables and variables exclusion, core concepts in econometrics, are entwined, several questions arise: How is identification related to the existence of IVs? How are identification criteria related to omitted variables? Is omission/inclusion of variables from...

We demonstrate the use of comparative studies to resolve endogeneity issues. We provide a simple way to statistically test the corresponding condition which can help to ascertain that endogeneity is not posing any issues in a regression analysis. We give a step by step guide that can be...

This study makes a cross sectional case in investigating the validity, or otherwise, of the finance-driven growth hypothesis in the ECOWAS countries using annual data from 1970 to 2008 for seven countries namely: Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. In...

The Econometric Society was founded at an "organization meeting" in December 1930. The invitations had been issued by Irving Fisher, Ragnar Frisch and, Charles F. Roos. In June the same year they had sent a form letter to a list of 31 scholars to solicit advice about establishing an...

This paper investigates the history of the shift from expert to model based monetary policy analysis at the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) in the postwar period up to the middle of the nineteen-eighties. For reasons that will become clear expert based reasoning at DNB was referred to as normative...

The journal of the Econometric Society, Econometrica, was established in 1933 and edited by Ragnar Frisch for the first 22 years. As a new journal Econometrica had three key characteristics. First, it was devoted to a research program stated in few but significant words in the constitution of...

Ragnar Frisch's concept of econometrics was broader in scope than the more restricted connotation it has today as a sub-discipline of economics, it may be more properly rendered as a reconstruction of economics along principles inspired and drawn from natural sciences. In this reconstruction an...

The article reviews the early history of the Cowles Commission, its close and intertwined relations with the Econometric Society (ES), and the influence and guidance of Ragnar Frisch. It provides much detail on the three rounds of choosing a research director, in 1937-38, in 1939 and at the end...

Trygve Haavelmo's The Probability Approach in Econometrics (1944) has been widely regarded as the foundation document of modern econometrics. Nevertheless, its significance has been interpreted in widely different ways. Some modern economists regard it as a blueprint for a provocative, but...