Abstract
Economics is rightly called an empirical science today. The claim is based on two developments having taken place in this century, mathematization and national accounting. Mathematization of economics has provided the intellectual means for building interdependent and coherent models of complex economic processes; national accounts have provided a corresponding, equally coherent set of data. Yet, the initial dream under which such kind of ‘econometrics’ was launched has not become true. Economics has neither discovered specific laws of motion, nor has it determined constants of society, in analogy to constants of nature, which would allow irreproachable forecasts of future economic events. Economics has not become like mechanics.
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© 1997 András Simonovits and Albert E. Steenge
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Reich, UP. (1997). Index Numbers and the Theory of Value. In: Simonovits, A., Steenge, A.E. (eds) Prices, Growth and Cycles. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25275-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25275-6_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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