I would be interested in some speculations about why economics has taken an empirical direction. I don't doubt that the NBER has played a positive role by providing congenial forums in which empirical economists can exchange ideas and in other ways. However, my assumption would be that the main force has been the tremendous fall in the cost of computing. It is much much easier to compile and manipulate large data sets than it was 25 or 30 years ago. The funding agencies may also have played a role. My impression is that NSF and NIH favor projects that collect and make available large data sets. And there have been some developments in econometrics (VARs) that are data intensive. But, of course, the development of data-intensive econometric techniques is partly the result of the fall in computing costs. Hugh Rockoff