================= HES POSTING ================= Ross: Could you explain how you would be better placed as an economic historian rather than an economist to illuminate contemporary policy issues and analytical developments. The fourth dimension is the fourth wheel of the economists' chariot; its absence explains why the formalist revolution tends to become bogged in algebraic showmanship and statistical manipulations of dubious validity. Statistics was elevated above history as the primary source of empirical data (Stigler 1962); this created a profession obsessed with regression races, but ignorant of what Keynes, Friedman, Yule etc. had cautioned about such activities. The linkages between economics and history departments seem to be very slight; many economists tend to regard such subjects as 'waffle', lacking in rigour. My "subversive function" could not be performed by historians, only by economists. Robert Leeson ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]