================= HES POSTING ================= 
 
By formalist revolution, I mean the econometrics movement from the 1930s 
and the simultaneous revival of interest in the Walrasian approach.  Do 
these two developments constitute a revolution?  I think they do, in that 
the leading players self-consciously sought to effect a revolution in 
research methods. 
 
Tinbergen et al sought to uncover the structual equations of capitalism; so 
as to provide a guide for policy makers to alter key magnitudes in order to 
mitigate the business cycle.  Even when the immeadiate post-war econometric 
forecasts were disastourously wrong, they were still perceived by Klein 
(JPE 1946, 1947) to be vastly superior to the unrigourous "armchair" 
statistics of those (eg the NBER) the revolutionaries sought to replace. 
Thus Keynesian economics rose and fell to the accompaniment of econometric 
failure. 
 
The Walrasians were equally contemptuous of Marshallian economics; 
Marshall's fuzziness had "paralised the best brains in economics for 
decades" according to Samuelson.  For Tobin, Keynesian economics was "a 
short-cut GE approach". 
 
The leading opponents of the formalist revolution were J. M. Keynes and 
Milton Friedman. 
 
Robert Leeson 
University of Western Ontario 
 
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]