This file is a single-author programmatic essay, reprinted from the first issue of Econometrica. Schumpeter writes not a technical contribution but a disciplinary manifesto for the new journal and society. His central claim is that econometrics is not a sectarian method or a repudiation of historical, sociological, or institutional economics; it is the explicit organization of a quantitative dimension already built into economic life.
We are no sect. Nor are we a “school.”
The opening move is defensive but also strategic. Schumpeter refuses the idea that mathematical economics should monopolize the field, yet insists that some economic phenomena are intrinsically numerical. Prices, unlike many physical magnitudes, do not first require an artificial measuring procedure in order to become quantities; they exist socially as numerical relations. This lets him invert the usual hierarchy between “natural” and “moral” sciences.
There is, however, one sense in which economics is the most quantitative, not only of "social" or "moral" sciences, but of all sciences, physics not excluded.
From this premise follows his definition of econometrics: not a fashionable technique, but the conscious acceptance of the numerical character of a large part of economics.
Econometrics is nothing but the explicit recognition of this rather obvious fact, and the attempt to face the consequences of it.
The essay then reconstructs the history of economic thought as an unfinished econometric tendency. Petty, Gregory King, early monetary writers, Ricardo, Cournot, Thünen, Walras, Marshall, Fisher, and Moore appear as precursors because they sought, in different ways, to connect theory, measurement, business records, and statistical regularities. Schumpeter’s canon is selective but purposeful: it shows that econometrics does not break with classical and marginal analysis but clarifies what was latent in them. His treatment of Cournot, Thünen, and Walras especially frames modern economics as a progressive effort to make theory capable of “gripping” fact.
The historical section also identifies a recurring obstacle: economics has too often been pulled toward immediate practical controversy. Schumpeter argues that science cannot mature under the demand for instant policy answers.
No science thrives, however, in the atmosphere of direct practical aim, and even practical results are but the by-products of disinterested work at the problem for the problem's sake.
The diagnosis of the present is therefore institutional as much as intellectual. By 1933, economic theory, statistical technique, and empirical material have all advanced, but they remain poorly coordinated. The statistician, the field investigator, the mathematical theorist, and the business-data specialist often work past one another. Schumpeter’s “common sense” is the proposal to replace methodological polemic with concrete collaboration on quantitative problems. The Econometric Society is justified as a forum where theory and fact discipline each other through results rather than slogans.
There is high remedial virtue in quantitative argument and exact proof.
The closing program is deliberately modest. Schumpeter does not promise rapid policy instruments or mechanical prediction. Econometrics matters because it trains economics to state its claims more exactly, to discover new questions, and to build a more powerful future theory. Its practical value is indirect, but decisive: without quantitative articulation, economics cannot speak persuasively to practical men.
Our aims are first and last scientific.
The essay’s lasting relevance lies in this balance. Schumpeter presents econometrics neither as mere statistics nor as abstract mathematics, but as the disciplined junction of numerical fact, theoretical structure, and empirical testing. Its founding ideal is cooperative: economics becomes more scientific when its different crafts learn to meet in shared quantitative problems.
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