Gerhard Tintner, Internationale Konjunkturforschung (1936)

Gerhard Tintner’s periodical article presents international business-cycle research as an institutional response to the complexity of modern economic life. Occasioned by the fifth international congress of business-cycle research institutes, scheduled for 9–11 June in Vienna, it moves from an institutional history to the practical and scientific purposes of these organizations, then concludes with the possibilities of international cooperation. Its central argument is that economic observation requires specialized statistical methods, theoretically informed interpretation, and institutional independence. International coordination can strengthen this work and establish foundations for policy without making the institutes themselves policy-making bodies.

The congress, convened at Oskar Morgenstern’s invitation and administered by the Austrian institute, supplies the article’s immediate setting. Tintner distinguishes the long history of theories of prosperity and crisis from the comparatively recent development of organized empirical research during and after the First World War. He traces a succession from Harvard’s institute, founded in 1916, through the London and Cambridge service of 1923 and the Berlin institute of 1925 to the Austrian institute of 1927. Harvard’s importance lay in both its exemplary reports and its development of statistical methods subsequently adopted elsewhere. Institutes across Europe indicate that this research had become an international enterprise, supported by organizations capable of sustained observation and regular exchange.

Tintner explains their emergence through complementary practical and scientific needs. Business leaders and economic-policy makers can no longer adequately grasp economic tendencies through personal experience; modern economic relationships have become too intricate. Meanwhile, theoretical investigation of crises requires empirical evidence sufficiently varied to illuminate actual processes. Institutes therefore mediate between dispersed economic events and intelligible accounts of their development:

Eine wichtige Aufgabe der Konjunkturinstitute liegt also zunächst in der objektiven Berichterstattung über die wirtschaftlichen Ereignisse in nicht allzu langen Zeitabständen.

English translation: An important task of the business-cycle institutes therefore consists, first of all, in objective reporting on economic events at intervals that are not too long.

Regular reporting is only the beginning of this task. Monthly, weekly, or quarterly publications must represent phenomena that are difficult to identify and quantify. Tintner insists that their figures cannot be treated as transparent reproductions of economic reality:

Immer wieder muß darauf hingewiesen werden, daß die von den Konjunkturinstituten veröffentlichten Zahlen und Daten bloß Wahrscheinlichkeitcharakter haben.

English translation: It must repeatedly be emphasized that the figures and data published by the business-cycle institutes have only a probabilistic character.

He distinguishes unavoidable random errors from systematic errors arising through inadequate data. Business-cycle statistics seeks to extract the greatest possible information from these imperfect materials and distinguish the components of statistical series relevant to cyclical observation. Mathematical sophistication does not remove the need for methodological improvement. The article thus couples confidence in statistical research with a clear account of the limits of its evidence.

This qualified understanding of measurement supports Tintner’s conception of scientific authority. Reports can inform commercial decisions and furnish governments with evidence for contemplated measures, but the institutes should not themselves conduct economic policy. Independence is not merely an administrative preference:

Die Unabhängigkeit der Konjunkturforschungsinstitute vom staatlichen Einfluß und selbstverständlich auch von privaten Sonderinteressen ist geradezu eine Grundbedingung ihrer Existenz, da eine objektive Berichterstattung sonst nicht möglich wäre.

English translation: The independence of the business-cycle research institutes from state influence and, of course, also from private special interests is nothing less than a fundamental condition of their existence, since objective reporting would otherwise be impossible.

Tintner locates their scientific contribution in a reciprocal relationship between research problems and theoretical development. Business-cycle investigation stimulates general statistical methods, especially the theory of time series. He singles out Oskar Anderson’s difference method and a forthcoming contribution by Abraham Wald. Economic theory also benefits: the Austrian institute’s origins in Ludwig von Mises’s initiative and Friedrich August von Hayek’s directorship connect its work to the Austrian school, particularly monetary crisis theory. Its nine-volume series addresses capital theory, cycle theory, and cycle policy, while an English-language price investigation undertaken with the London School of Economics illustrates its empirical and international reach.

Yet neither accumulating data nor elaborating statistical techniques is sufficient. Tintner identifies cooperation between business-cycle theory and statistics as the field’s central problem, acknowledging that existing methods are often empirical without adequate theoretical justification.

Sehr wichtig ist die ökonomische Theorie insbesondere für die Deutung der Ergebnisse der Konjunkturstatistik.

English translation: Economic theory is especially important for interpreting the results of business-cycle statistics.

The decisive objective is a synthesized, economically sound interpretation, not the largest possible collection of observations. A purely statistical standpoint cannot supply that interpretation. Tintner’s account therefore makes theory necessary to understanding evidence while recognizing that the complexity of economic processes has limited progress in bringing the two together.

The conclusion extends this argument internationally. Because prosperity and crisis generally cross national boundaries, exchanges among institute directors can improve research through experience gained in different countries. Harmonizing reports and methods would also create a more consistent evidentiary basis for international economic policy. Tintner maintains the distinction between preparing that basis and drafting political programs: neither the congress nor its participating institutes should undertake the latter. The article’s relevance lies in this conception of research infrastructure—internationally coordinated and useful to decision-makers, yet independent, attentive to uncertainty, and dependent on interpretation rather than numbers alone.