A PERSPECTIVE ON THE ACCURACY OF ECONOMIC OBSERVATIONS

In 1950 appeared the first edition of Oskar Morgenstern's famous book, The Accuracy of Economic Observations, Nearly half a century later it is timely to return to Morgenstern's diagnosis and to contemplate his therapeutic recommendations. Morgenstern's vision can and should info rm the consideration of the topic today because of the continued valid ity of many of his findings, His work still provides stimuli for study ing the general problems of measurement, the varying requirements for accuracy, the issues of aggregate macroeconomic measures, and the pros pects for economic and social measurement, This is so even if some of the bleaker assessments by Morgenstern, notwithstanding their technica l merits, provide little or no practical guidance for statistical acti vities, In this context it is enlightening to recall the different pra ctical attitudes adopted by Keynes and by some of his contemporaries i n Germany regarding theoretical difficulties with aggregate macroecono mic data.