Gerhard Tintner’s Review of Économétrie (1954)

Gerhard Tintner’s journal book review evaluates the proceedings of a 1952 Paris meeting devoted to risk and uncertainty, published by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in 1953. His account moves from a survey of the contributions to a methodological assessment of their significance for economics. The governing judgment is qualified admiration: the symposium contains brilliant mathematical work, particularly by Maurice Allais, but its unresolved disputes about rational choice, uncertain handling of scientific abstraction, and neglect of empirical research limit its contribution to economic science.

The first part maps a debate centered on the von Neumann–Morgenstern theory of choice. Guilbaud examines the compatibility of probabilities under stochastic conditions; Savage generalizes the axioms of rational behavior while drawing on de Finetti’s subjective probabilities; de Finetti considers subjective probability within game theory. Samuelson’s contribution concerns strong independence: combining either of two gains with a third at the same probability should leave their original preference ordering unchanged. Against this axiomatic approach, Massé and Morlat advance psychological and business-related criticisms of substitution, while van Dantzig examines objections to the theory and its subsequent developments. Tintner thus presents a shared theoretical framework whose behavioral adequacy remains contested.

Other contributions extend uncertainty into economic allocation and institutional problems. Arrow argues that competitive stock prices distribute risks optimally when participants are risk-averse. Friedman relates income inequality partly to individual tastes and preferences under uncertainty, though Tintner stresses the simplified assumptions. Allais generalizes equilibrium and welfare economics using particular utility functions and normal probability distributions, with mean gains and variance determining utility. Wold distinguishes objective probabilities, empirical estimates, and subjective estimates; Marschak studies teams and organizations; Boiteux extends marginal-cost pricing to stochastic demand; Ville addresses risk and credit. Frisch’s discussion of autonomy, identification, and decision models stands out as a specifically econometric contribution, connecting theoretical relations to statistical analysis and policy.

Allais receives the most sustained attention. His discussions and appendix examine how monetary values and objective probabilities are transformed psychologically, distinguishing mathematical expectation and dispersion from such additional influences as gambling costs, the pleasure of gambling or winning, and minimum gain thresholds. These distinctions support a positive theory of choice and a detailed challenge to the “American school,” especially its expectation, independence, and substitution principles. Tintner places Allais in the tradition of Cournot and Walras, without treating his criticisms as a definitive settlement:

The main problem, the validity of the von Neumann-Morgenstern axioms, remains disputed.

This unresolved question structures the review’s evaluative turn. Tintner praises the individual contributions and vigorous discussions, recommending thorough study to mathematically trained specialists. Yet intellectual distinction does not by itself establish the volume’s broader importance for economists. His reservations concern how the symposium formulates and judges theories, rather than simply which axiomatic system it favors.

The first methodological objection concerns the status of axioms. Tintner argues that a consistent system permits some flexibility in what is designated an axiom or a theorem; axioms need not be intuitively undeniable starting points. He identifies a tendency to treat them instead as self-evident propositions:

None of the axioms proposed in the discussion are self-evident in this sense.

The implication is that disagreement over an axiom cannot be resolved merely by appealing to its supposed obviousness. The debate requires greater clarity about the purpose and structure of the propositions under examination.

His second objection separates descriptive economics from prescriptions for conduct. “Rational behavior” can refer either to actual behavior or to how people ought to behave, and the discussion does not consistently distinguish these meanings.

If we forget this distinction we obtain a very strange mixture of behaviorism and ethics.

This distinction matters directly to the controversy over choice under uncertainty: a behavioral counterexample and an objection to a normative rule address different claims. Tintner’s criticism asks participants to clarify what kind of validity their theories seek.

The third objection concerns the limits of explanation. Scientific inquiry necessarily idealizes, constructs models, and abstracts from empirical detail. Consequently, incomplete coverage is not sufficient grounds for rejecting a theory:

Hence it is senseless to require that economics or any part of it should explain all phenomena of a certain kind.

Tintner applies this argument to von Neumann and Morgenstern. Their theory explains a substantial class of phenomena through what he calls the Bernouillian hypothesis of maximizing average gain over the long run. Pleasure in gambling and love of adventure may escape it and become especially important in economic dynamics, including the Schumpeterian entrepreneur. But these omissions should not automatically count against a formulation whose scope is static. He thereby recognizes Allais’s challenges while resisting an unlimited demand for behavioral completeness.

The review closes by distinguishing legitimate abstraction from neglect of evidence:

It is disappointing that a colloquium entitled Econometrics should contain so little empirical material.

Tintner also criticizes the omission of earlier theoretical contributions between Bernoulli and von Neumann, and points through his references to empirical studies of expectations, agriculture, demand, and resource allocation. His final standard is therefore neither exhaustive psychological realism nor formal elegance alone. The symposium advances mathematical economics, but its relevance to economic science depends on clearer distinctions between description and prescription, fair assessment of models within their intended scope, and engagement with existing empirical investigations.