================= HES POSTING ================= 
 
John Dodge illustrates my point.  Stigler ran what may have been the first 
regression race between the quantity theory and the Keynesian consumption 
function in 1949.  These races, or dance macabres, undermined the Keynesian 
hegemony from 1957, despite Friedman's NBER scepticism about the usefulness 
of regression analysis. 
 
In 1957 Chamberlin, followed by Archibald, invited Chicago to engage in a 
similar regression race over the respective merits of monopolistic and 
perfect competition.  Friedman and Stigler bluntly refused.  This to my 
mind illustrates Stigler's understanding -- derived from his acute 
awareness of the sociology of knowledge in the economics profession -- of 
the dangers of engaging in what he called the unpredictable "foxhunts of 
controversy" when a position of which he approved was called into question. 
Since he dissaproved of the hegemony of the Keynesian system, foxhunts in 
this area could only lead to places that the Keynesians could not predic, 
and to outcomes that they would not approve. How much Keynesian energy was 
dissipated in regression races that (Friedman knew) could only weaken its 
dominant position? 
 
The logic of the formalist revolution forced the 'macroeconomic Keynesians' 
to exchange theoretical/textbook hegemony for empirical uncertainty; an 
exchange that Stigler and Friedman would not make at a microeconomic level. 
Their understanding of the formalist revolution was superior to the 
formalists' understanding; this understanding was derived, in part, from 
Friedman's greater exposure to data and statistical analysis and, in part, 
from Stigler's 'professional' and Friedman's 'amateur' understanding of the 
dynamics of the sociology of knowledge in the economics profession. 
 
Robert Leeson 
University of Western Ontario 
 
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