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Economic Theory, Statistical Inference, and Economic History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

John R. Meyer  and
Alfred H. Conrad
John R. Meyer
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Alfred H. Conrad
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

This paper is an attempt to examine critically the function of theory in historical research and particularly in economic history. the function of We shall take as our starting point the assertion that the historian is not interested simply in collecting facts or true statements about some segment of previous experience. He wants to find causes and to explain what happened. The purpose of this paper is to introduce some of the problems attached to the concepts of historical causality and explanation in a stochastic universe and to suggest how the analytic tools of scientific inference can be applied in economic historiography.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 1957 , pp. 524 - 544
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1957

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References

1 See White, Morton G., “Toward an Analytical Interpretation of History,” in Philosophic Thought in France and the United Slates, Farber, Marvin, ed. (Buffalo, New York, 1950), pp. 705–26Google Scholar.

2 Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, 1950), II, 251Google Scholar and Rickert, Heinrich, Die Grenzen der naturtvissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung quoted in F. C. Lane and J. C. Riemersma, Enterprise and Secular Change (Homewood, Illinois, 1953), p. 432Google Scholar.

3 Croce, Benedetto, The Theory and History of Historiography (London: George G. Harrap, 1921), p. 76 andGoogle ScholarCollingwood, R. G., The Idea of History (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1946), pp. 214–15Google Scholar.

4 Simon, Herbert A., Models of Man (New York, 1957), ch. i, “Causal Ordering and Identifiability,” p. 26; see also, ch. iii, “On the Definition of the Causal Relation,” andGoogle ScholarOrcutt, Guy H., “Toward Partial Redirection of Econometrics,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXXIV (08. 1952), 195–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See, e.g., the arguments discussed in Gardiner, Patrick, The Nature of Historical Explanation (Oxford, 1952), pp. 28–64Google Scholar.

6 See, e.g., , Popper, The Open Society, pp. 246–56, andGoogle Scholar, Lane and , Riemersma, Enterprise, pp. 522–34Google Scholar.

7 See , Popper, The Open Society, pp. 246–56Google Scholar.

8 Jeffreys, Harold, Scientific Inference (2 ed.; Cambridge, 1957), p. 191. Much of the argument of this section is derived from the analysis of probability and statistical methods in scientific explanation byGoogle ScholarJeffreys, and Braithwaite, R. B., Scientific Explanation (Cambridge, 1955), especially chs. vi, viii, ixGoogle Scholar.

9 Quoted in , Gardiner, Historical Explanation, p. 91, fromGoogle ScholarHempel, Carl, “The Function of General Laws in History,” Journal of Philosophy, XXXIX (01. 1942), 35–48. The quotation is cited because Gardiner, having almost answered the argument by anticipation when he considered the proposition that history is sui generis, in a later chapter swallows it whole, “sufficient precision” and “relevant empirical evidence” includedCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Quoted in Salvemini, G., Historian and Scientist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939), P. 88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 This approach is developed in greater detail, starting in Sec. Ill below. See Samuelson, Paul A., The Foundations of Economic Analysis (Cambridge, 1947), pp. 311–20, for an interesting attempt to define causal, historical, and stochastical systemsGoogle Scholar.

12 F. Engels to H. Starkenburg, Jan. 25, 1894, quoted in , Gardiner, Historical Explanation, p. 100Google Scholar.

13 Hempel, C. G. and Oppenheim, P., “Studies in the Logic of Exploration,” Philosophy of Science (04. 1948), 135–75, esP. P. 145Google Scholar; , Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation, esp. pp. 322–25Google Scholar.

14 See Hempel, C. G. and Oppenheim, P., “Studies,” and W. W. Leontief, “Note on the Pluralistic Interpretation of History and the Problem of Inter-disciplinary Cooperation,” journal of Philosophy, XLV (11. 1948), 617–24Google Scholar.

15 Even in the experimental sciences there is always some chance or probability that a new experiment will disprove an experiment that has previously stood up to all experimental tests. The fate of Newton's law is an obvious example in this regard.

16 It is interesting to note that when one lists the good quantitative work done in the field of economic history, it has more often than not been done by someone originally trained in economics.

17 See, e.g., Hampshire, Stuart, “Subjunctive Conditionals,” Analyis, IX (10. 1948), 9–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Excellent treatments of the counterfactual conditional may be found in Goodman, Nelson, “The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals,” Journal of Philosophy, XLIV (02. 1947), 113–28, and inCrossRefGoogle Scholar, Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation, pp. 295–317. The slavery examples are from an unpublished paper, Alfred H. Conrad and John R. Meyer, “The Economics of Slavery in the Ante-bellum South,” presented at the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, National Bureau of Economic Research, at Williamstown, Mass., Sept. 1957Google Scholar.

19 See, e.g., Knight, Frank H., “The Limitations of Scientific Method in Economics,” in Rexford Tugwell, G., ed., The Trend of Economics (New York, 1924), esp. pp. 251–52;Google Scholarsee also , Croce, Theory, p. 65Google Scholar.

20 , Popper, The Open Society, p. 250Google Scholar.

21 Quoted in the Times Literary Supplement (London) (July 19, 1957), p. 440.