ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Measurement without theory — Kuznets’ sailing through the storm.
Author: Syrquin Moshe
The paper is concerned with the monumental study of Simon Kuznets on the Economic Growth of Nations, a study for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 1971. While not its main focus the paper will also touch on the “measurement without theory” controversy of the late 1940s. I argue that Kuznets’ growth project appears already in embryonic form in some of his early work around 1930, primarily in the monograph on Secular Movements in Production and Prices. The work on national income which occupied him for the better part of a decade provided the founding blocks that made possible the subsequent work. By 1940 he was toying with the idea of a large comparative study of the Economic Growth of Nations attempting to drum up support for, what was for the time, a rather unconventional and ambitious approach. It took Kuznets close to a decade to finally find a house (SSRC) and a sponsor (Ford) for the study which the NBER declined to support. While not theoretical in the formalistic approach of the early 1950s (Theory without measurement or history) it was certainly not ‘measurement without theory’. In 1947 Koopmans published a caustic review of the Mitchell-Burns approach to the study of business cycles. In his critique he contrasted the econometric approach of the Cowles group with the NBER method of primarily collecting and cataloguing vast amounts of information with minimal guidance from theory. While Koopmans later tried to find some middle ground the review can be seen as a turning point in the profession, signaling the ascendancy of the econometric approach and a demotion of the more inductive historical methodology that had been the hallmark of the NBER approach under Mitchell. With the probable exception of Burns, Simon Kuznets was at the time Mr. NBER. While he always considered himself a disciple of Mitchell he seems to have escaped unscathed from the Cowles attack, at least outwardly. It is virtually impossible to find a reference in the literature linking him with the debate either as a participant or as a character mentioned in the indictment. This paper suggests that Kuznets was concerned, almost obsessed, with his growth study and, at that time, much less with cycles certainly not attempting a wholesale cataloguing of a large number of only tenuously related series. The paper will also address the following issues: - The search for a sponsor from the mid-1940s to about 1950. The NBER, Burns in particular, were not receptive. There were probably some personal issues involved related to the leadership and direction in the post-Mitchell NBER. - The establishment of the Committee on Economic Growth of the SRRC and its operation with Kuznets as chairman between 1949 and 1968. - Growth theory around 1950: Kuznets, Solow, and later Pasinetti — orthogonal approaches.
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